195 
THE VOYAGE OP THE VEGA. 
[CUAP, 
undaunted resolution, and fidelity to the trust committed to 
liimd 
6. Voyage for the purpose of exploring and surveying the eoast 
of America,- —For this purpose Behring fitted out at Okotsk two 
vessels, of which he himself took the command of one, St. Paul , 
while the other, St. Peter, was placed under Chirikov. They 
left Okotsk in 1740, and being prevented by shoal water from 
entering Bolschaja Reka, they both wintered in Avatscha Bay, 
whose excellent haven was called, from the names of the ships. 
Port Peter-Paul. On the h^th June they left this haven, the 
naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller having first gone on board 
Behring s and the astronomer Louis HE LTsle he la Croyere 
Chirikov’s vessel. The course was shaped at first for the S.S.E., 
but afterwards, when no land could be discovered in this 
direction, for the N.E. and E. During a storm on the 
vessels were separated. On the i-fth July Behring reached the 
coast of America in 58° to 59° N.L. A short distance from the 
shore Steller discovered here a splendid volcano, which was 
named St. Elias. The coast was inhabited, but the inhabitants 
fled when the vessel approached. From this point Behring 
Avished to sail in a north-westerly direction to that promontory 
of Asia which formed the turning-]3oint of his first voyage. It 
Avas hoAvever only with difficulty that in the almost constant fog 
the peninsula of Alaska could be rounded and the vessel could 
sail forward among the Aleutian island groups. Scurvy now 
broke out among the creAV, and the commander himself suffered 
1 Wrangel, i. p. 62. I liaA^e sketched the A^oyages between the White Sea 
and the Kolyma, principally after Engelhardt’s German translation of Wran- 
gel’s Travels. It is, unfortunately, in many respects defective and confused, 
especially Avith respect to the sketch of Chariton Laptev and his followers, 
sledge journeys, undertaken in order to survey the coast between the 
Chatanga and the Pjasina. Muller mentions these journeys only in passing. 
Wrangel gives as sources for his sketch (i. note at p. 38) Memoirs of the 
Russian Admiralty, also the original journals of the journeys. Chelyuskin 
he calls Chemokssin, 
