INTRODUCTION. 
Iv 
them to venture on this fea, had been able to procure *; 
That, by fixing the relative fituation of Afia and America, 
and difcovering the narrow bounds of the ftrait that divides 
them, he has thrown a blaze of light upon this important 
part of the geography of the globe, and folved the puzzling 
problem about the peopling of America, by tribes deftitute 
of the necefiary means to attempt long navigations; and, 
laftly, That, though the principal object of the voyage fail¬ 
ed, the world will be greatly benefited even by the failure, 
as it has brought us to the knowledge of the exiftence of 
the impediments, which future navigators may expert to 
meet with in attempting to go to the Eaft Indies through 
Beering’s ftrait. 
The extended review we have taken of the preceding 
voyages, and the general outline we have Iketched out, of 
the tranftuftions of the laft, which are recorded at full 
length in thefe volumes, will not, it is hoped, be confidered 
as a prolix or unneceftary detail. It will ferve to give a 
juft notion of the whole plan of difcovery executed by his 
Majefty’s commands. And it appearing that much was 
aimed at, and much accomplifhed, in the unknown parts 
of the globe, in both hemifpheres, there needs no other 
* The Ruffians feem to owe much to England, in matters of this fort. It is fingular 
enough that one of our countrymen, Dr. Campbell [See his edition of Harris’s voyages, 
Vol. ii. p. 1021.] has preferred many valuable particulars of Beering’s fir ft voyage, of 
which Muller himfelf, the Hiftorian of their earlier difcoveries, makes no mention; that 
it fhould be another of our countrymen, Mr. Coxe, who firft publifhed a fatisfa&ory ac¬ 
count of their later difcoveries 5 and that the King of Great Britain’s fhips fhould tra- 
verfe the globe in 1778, to confirm to the Ruffian empire the pofleffion of near thirty 
degrees, or above fix hundred miles, of continent, which Mr. Engel, in his zeal for the 
practicability of a North Eaft paffage, would prune away from the length of Afia to the 
Eaftward. See his Memoires Geographiques , See. Laufanne 1765 ; which, however, con¬ 
tains much real information; and many parts of which are confirmed by Captain 
Cook’s American difcoveries. 
* 
conftderation, - 
