PART III.THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS.

FOOTNOTES:[60]Note 46.

[60]Note 46.

The Arctic expeditions made during the period from 1734 to 1743 have only in part any connection with the object of this work. These expeditions were, it is true, planned by Bering, and it was due to his activity and perseverance that they were undertaken. He secured vessels, men, and means, and had charge of the first unsuccessful attempt; he was responsible to the government, and in his zeal went just as far as his instructions would allow him. But his own special task soon taxed his time too heavily to permit him to assume charge of the Arctic expeditions. They were not carried out until several years after his departure from Yakutsk,—after he had ceased to be their leader. We have already shown Bering's important relation to them, something which has never before been done in West European literature. Hence our object, namely, to give Bering his dues, may therefore best be accomplished by giving a short account of the results achieved by these expeditions.

The world has never witnessed a more heroic geographical enterprise than these Arctic expeditions. In five or six different directions—from the Petchora, the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena—the unknown coasts of the OldWorld were attacked.[61]For a whole decade these discoverers struggled with all the obstacles which a terrible climate and the resources of a half developed country obliged them to contend with. They surmounted these obstacles. The expeditions were renewed, two, three, yes, even four times. If the vessels were frozen in, they were hauled upon shore the next spring, repaired, and the expedition continued. And if these intrepid fellows were checked in their course by masses of impenetrable ice, they continued their explorations on dog sledges, which here for the first time were employed in Arctic exploration. Cold, scurvy, and every degree of discomfort wrought sad havoc among them, but many survived the long polar winter in miserable wooden huts or barracks. Nowhere has Russian hardiness erected for itself a more enduring monument.

It was especially the projecting points and peninsulas in this region that caused these explorers innumerable difficulties. These points and capes had hitherto been unknown. The crude maps of this period represented the Arctic coast of Siberia as almost a straight line. It was first necessary for the navigators to send cartographers to these regions, build beacons and sea-marks, establish magazines, collect herds of reindeer, which, partly as an itinerant food supply, and partly to be used as an eventualmeans of conveyance, followed along the coast with the vessels, while here and there, especially on the Taimyr peninsula, small fishing stations were established for supplying the vessels.

In the summer of 1737 Malygin and Skuratoff crossed the Kara Sea and sailed up the Gulf of Obi. In the same year the able Ofzyn charted the coast between the Obi and the Yenesei, but was reduced to the rank of a common sailor, because in Berezov he had sought the company of the exiled Prince Dolgoruki.

In the year previous, Pronchisheff all but succeeded in doubling the Taimyr peninsula, and reached the highest latitude (77° 29') that had been reached by water before the Vega expedition. But it was especially in the second attempt, from 1738 to 1743, that the greatest results were attained. The two cousins, Chariton and Dmitri Laptjef, who were equipped anew and vested with great authority, attacked the task of doubling the Taimyr and Bering peninsulas with renewed vigor. By extensive sledging expeditions, the former linked his explorations to those undertaken by Minin and Sterlegoff from the west, and his mate, Chelyuskin, in 1742, planted his feet on the Old World's most northerly point, and thus relegated the story of a certain Jelmerland, said to connect northern Asia with Novaia Zemlia, to that lumber-room which contains so many ingenious cartographical ideas. But even these contributions to science were, perhaps, surpassed by those of Dmitri Laptjef. As Lassenius's successor he charted, in three summers, the Siberian coast from the Lena to the great Baranoff Cliff, a distance of thirty-seven degrees. On this coast, towardthe last, he found himself in a narrow strait, from ten to twenty yards wide, and he did not stop until there was scarcely a bucketful of water between the polar ice and the rocky shore. But Cape Schelagskii, on the northeast coast, where Deshneff a century before had shown the way, he did not succeed in doubling.

As a result of the labors of this great Northern Expedition, the northern coast of the Old World got substantially the same cartographical outline that it now has. The determinations of latitude made by the Russian officers were very accurate, but those of longitude, based on nautical calculations, were not so satisfactory. Their successors, Wrangell, Anjou, Middendorff, and even Nordenskjöld, have therefore found opportunity to make corrections of but minor importance, especially in regard to longitude.

But it is necessary to dwell a little longer on these expeditions. Their principal object was not so much the charting of northern Siberia as the discovery and navigation of the Northeast passage. From this point of view alone they must be considered. This is the connecting thought, the central point in these scattered labors. They were an indirect continuation of the West European expeditions for the same purpose, but far more rational than these. For this reason Bering had, on his expedition of reconnoissance (1725-30), first sought that thoroughfare between the two hemispheres without which a Northeast and a Northwest passage could not exist. For this reason also he had, on his far-sighted plan, undertaken the navigation of the Arcticseas, where this had not already been done by Deshneff, and for this same reason the Admiralty sought carefully to link their explorations to the West European termini, on the coast of Novaia Zemlia as well as Japan. Moreover, the discovery of a Northeast passage was theraison d'êtreof these expeditions.

This alone promised the empire such commercial and political advantages that the enormous expenditures and the frightful hardships which these expeditions caused Siberia, might be justified. For this reason the government, summer after summer, drove its sailors on along the Taimyr and Bering peninsulas; for this reason, in 1740, it enjoined upon D. Laptjef to make a last attempt to double northeast Asia from Kamchatka, and this would undoubtedly have been accomplished if the unfortunate death of Bering had not occurred shortly after;[62]and for this reason, also, the government caused the charting of the coast by land after all nautical attempts had miscarried.

Any extended documentary proof of the correctness of this view must be considered unnecessary. The instructions expressly state the object of the expedition: to ascertain with certainty whether vessels could find a passage or not. Müller says the same. Scholars like Middendorff, Von Baer, and Dr. Petermann look upon these expeditions from the same standpoint, and have seen fit to give them the place of honor among all the geographical efforts in the Northeast passage.[63]Some Swedish scholars alone have found it necessary to maintain a different view. Dr. A. Stuxberg and Prof. Th.

M. Fries in Upsala have published accounts of the history of the Northeast passage, in which not a word about these expeditions is found. Between the days of Vlaming and Cook, from 1688 until 1778, they find nothing to be said of explorations in this part of the world, and the charting of these waters does not, in their opinion, seem to have any connection with the history of the Northeast passage. Prof. Fries attempts to justify this strange method of treatment by the assertion that those expeditions did not seek the navigation of the Northeast passage, and did not undertake to sail a ship from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But what authority, what historical foundation, have such assertions? Simply because the Russians parceled out this work and went at it in a sensible manner; because they did not loudly proclaim their intention to sail directly from the Dwina to Japan; because they had been instructed by the visionary and fatal attempts of West Europe,—yes, one is almost tempted to say, just because those Russian expeditions alone are of any importance in the early history of the passage, the Swedish historians pass them by; Prof. Fries has even ventured the assertion that the discovery of the Northeast passage by these Russian expeditions, one hundred and thirty-seven years before Nordenskjöld, is a discovery hitherto unsurmised by anyone but the author of this work. I am not disposed to wrangle about words, and still less to interfere with anyone's well-earned privileges. By the discovery of the Northeast passage, I understand that work of geographical exploration, that determination of the distribution of land and water along the northern boundaryof the Old World, that traversing and charting of the coast which showed the existence of the passage, but not the nautical utilization of it. This is the European interpretation of this question. In any other sense McClure did not discover the Northwest passage. If it is permissible to speak of the discovery of the Northeast passage after the time of Bering and the Great Northern Expedition, it is equally permissible to speak of the discovery of the Northwest passage after the time of the great English expeditions. If some future Nordenskjöld should take it into his head to choose these waters as the scene of some great nautical achievement, McClure, according to Prof. Fries's historical maxims, could not even find a place in the history of this passage, for it was not his object to sail a ship around the north of the New World. I very much doubt, however, that the Professor would in such a case have the courage to apply his maxims.

Nor does Baron Nordenskjöld concede to the Great Northern Expedition a place in the history of the Northeast passage. The "Voyage of the Vega" is an imposing work, and was written for a large public, but even the author of this work has not been able to rise to an unbiased and just estimate of his most important predecessors. His presentation of the subject of Russian explorations in the Arctic regions, not alone Bering's work and that of the Great Northern Expedition, but also Wrangell's, Lütke's, and Von Baer's, is unfair, unsatisfactory, inaccurate, and hence misleading in many respects. Nordenskjöld's book comes with such overpowering authority, and has had such a largecirculation, that it is one's plain duty to point out palpable errors. Nordenskjöld is not very familiar with the literature relating to this subject. He does not know Berch's, Stuckenberg's, or Sokoloff's works. Middendorff's and Von Baer's clever treatises he uses only incidentally. He has restricted himself to making extracts from Wrangell's account, which in many respects is more than incomplete, and does not put these expeditions in the right light. It is now a couple of generations since Wrangell's work was written, which is more a general survey than an historical presentation. While Nordenskjöld devotes page after page to an Othere's, an Ivanoff's, and a Martinier's very indifferent or wholly imaginary voyages around northern Norway, he disposes of the Great Northern Expedition, without whose labors the voyage of the Vega would have been utterly impossible, in five unhappily written pages. One seeks in vain in his work for the principal object of the Northern Expedition,—for the leading idea that made these magnificent enterprises an organic whole, or for a full and just recognition of these able, and, in some respects, unfortunate men, whose labors have so long remained without due appreciation. In spite of Middendorff's interesting account of the cartography of the Taimyr peninsula, Nordenskjöld does not make the slightest attempt to explain whether his corrections of the cartography of this region are corrections of the work of Laptjef and Chelyuskin, or of the misrepresentations of their work made by a later age.

About the charting of Cape Chelyuskin he says: "This was done by Chelyuskin in 1742 on a new sledging expedition, the details of which are but little known;evidently because until the most recent times there has been a doubt in regard to Chelyuskin's statement that he had reached the most northerly point of Asia. After the voyage of the Vega, however, there can no longer be any doubt."[64]

The truth is, ever since 1843,[65]when Middendorff published the preliminary account of his expedition to the Taimyr peninsula, no doubt has prevailed that all who are familiar with Russian literature, or even with German literature, on this subject, have long since been convinced of the fact that the most northern point of Asia was visited and charted a century and a half ago,—that the details of Chelyuskin's expedition, so far from being unknown, are those parts of the work of the Northern Expedition which have been most thoroughly investigated and most often presented. Nordenskjöld's recognition of Chelyuskin's work comes thirty-eight years too late; it has already been treated with quite a different degree of thoroughness than by the few words expended on it in the "Voyage of the Vega." In 1841, Von Baer accused Chelyuskin of having dishonestly given the latitude of the most northerly point of Asia, and these charges Nordenskjöld prints as late as 1881 without any comment whatever. If he had only seen Von Baer's magazine for 1845[66]he would there have found the most unreserved retraction of them and most complete restitution to Chelyuskin on the part of Von Baer, and would thus have escaped ascribing to a man opinions which he renounced a generation ago. Middendorff is likewise very painstaking in presenting the history of these measurements,and is open and frank in his praise. He says: "In the spring of 1742 Chelyuskin crowned his work by sailing from the Khatanga River around the eastern Taimyr peninsula and also around the most northerly point of Asia. He is the only one who a century ago had succeeded in reaching and doubling this promontory. The fact that among many he alone was successful in this enterprise, must be attributed to his great ability. On account of his perseverance, as well as his careful and exact measurements, he stands preëminent among seamen who have labored in the Taimyr country." And furthermore, in 1785, Sokoloff published a very careful and extensive account of these labors, together with an extract from Chelyuskin's diary relating to the charting of the Taimyr peninsula, which later was published in German by Dr. Petermann.[67]The difference in latitude of the northern point of the Taimyr peninsula as determined by Chelyuskin and by Nordenskjöld is scarcely three minutes.[68]

FOOTNOTES:[61]Middendorff gives the following interesting outline of these expeditions:From Petchora to the Obi:From the Obi:Muravjoff and Pavloff.Westward:Eastward:Malygin and Skuratoff.Golovin.Ofzyn.Minin.Koscheleff.From the Yenesei:From the Lena:Eastward:Westward:Eastward:Minin.Pronchisheff.Lassenius.Chariton Laptjef.Dmitri Laptjef.[62]Note 47.[63]Note 48.[64]Note 49.[65]Note 50.[66]Note 51.[67]Note 52.[68]On his review of my book in theJournal of the American Geographical Society, XVII., p. 288, Baron Nordenskjöld says: "Mr. Lauridsen has devoted nearly two pages to showing that I am wrong in what I have said of Chelyuskin—that 'up to a recent date the statement that he really did reach the northern point of Asia was doubted.' But I had certainly the right to say this. If a person in 1742 performed one of the heroic deeds of geography without having received any acknowledgment for it in his lifetime, and if the best authorities in this person's own country a century later still considered him an impostor, I was surely justified in giving the above-quoted opinion in 1880, in spite of the fact that two eminent geographical authorities have withdrawn their charges. Moreover, is it really the case that Sokoloff's and Von Baer's later writings made it impossible to revive the old charge? He who can assert this must be but slightly acquainted with the history of geography, and with that of Siberian geography above all." In a note Nordenskjöld adds: "Previous to the departure of the Vega from Sweden, I received a letter from an unknown well-wisher to our voyage, cautioning me not to put too much faith in the Chelyuskin exploration story, as the writer of the letter considered it fictitious." To the Baron's criticism I shall simply remark: I have shown in the text that when he wrote the "Voyage of the Vega" he was not familiar with the latest works on this question. Hence he has been entirely unable to decide whether the old doubts concerning Chelyuskin's results could be revived or not. I appeal to all students of these finer points in the history of geography, who will certainly agree with my statement that the Baron in this question has absolutely no other support than that of an anonymous letter!—Author's Note to American Edition.

[61]Middendorff gives the following interesting outline of these expeditions:From Petchora to the Obi:From the Obi:Muravjoff and Pavloff.Westward:Eastward:Malygin and Skuratoff.Golovin.Ofzyn.Minin.Koscheleff.From the Yenesei:From the Lena:Eastward:Westward:Eastward:Minin.Pronchisheff.Lassenius.Chariton Laptjef.Dmitri Laptjef.

[61]Middendorff gives the following interesting outline of these expeditions:

[62]Note 47.

[63]Note 48.

[64]Note 49.

[65]Note 50.

[66]Note 51.

[67]Note 52.

[68]On his review of my book in theJournal of the American Geographical Society, XVII., p. 288, Baron Nordenskjöld says: "Mr. Lauridsen has devoted nearly two pages to showing that I am wrong in what I have said of Chelyuskin—that 'up to a recent date the statement that he really did reach the northern point of Asia was doubted.' But I had certainly the right to say this. If a person in 1742 performed one of the heroic deeds of geography without having received any acknowledgment for it in his lifetime, and if the best authorities in this person's own country a century later still considered him an impostor, I was surely justified in giving the above-quoted opinion in 1880, in spite of the fact that two eminent geographical authorities have withdrawn their charges. Moreover, is it really the case that Sokoloff's and Von Baer's later writings made it impossible to revive the old charge? He who can assert this must be but slightly acquainted with the history of geography, and with that of Siberian geography above all." In a note Nordenskjöld adds: "Previous to the departure of the Vega from Sweden, I received a letter from an unknown well-wisher to our voyage, cautioning me not to put too much faith in the Chelyuskin exploration story, as the writer of the letter considered it fictitious." To the Baron's criticism I shall simply remark: I have shown in the text that when he wrote the "Voyage of the Vega" he was not familiar with the latest works on this question. Hence he has been entirely unable to decide whether the old doubts concerning Chelyuskin's results could be revived or not. I appeal to all students of these finer points in the history of geography, who will certainly agree with my statement that the Baron in this question has absolutely no other support than that of an anonymous letter!—Author's Note to American Edition.

The men that took part in these early Russian explorations have not yet received their just dues. Not one of them, however, needs rehabilitation so much as Spangberg. He is entitled to an independent place in geographical history, but has been completely barred out. O. Peschel and Prof. Ruge know him as Bering's principal officer, but not as the discoverer of the Kurile Islands and Japan from the north. And yet, just this was his task. He was to sail from Kamchatka to Nipon, chart the Kurile Islands, link the Russian explorations to the West European cartography of northern Japan, and investigate the geography of the intervening region,—especially the cartographical monsters which in the course of a century of contortion had developed from De Vries's intelligent map of East Yezo, Iturup (Staaten Eiland) and Urup (Kompagniland). We have alreadyspoken of these geographical deformities, which assumed the most grotesque forms, and were at that time accepted by the scientific world. The version of the brothers De l'Isle, which perhaps was the most sober, may be seen from Map II. in the appendix.

By Strahlenberg (1730) and by Bellin and Charlesvoix (1735), highly respected names among scholars of that day, Kamchatka and Yezo were represented as forming a great continent separated by narrow sounds from Japan, which was continued on the meridian of Kamchatka and Yezo, and from an eastern chain of islands—Staaten Eiland and Kompagniland—that seemed to project into the Pacific in the form of a continent.

Kiriloff, who was familiar with Bering's map of eastern Asia, and made use of it, and who knew of the most northerly Kuriles, made the necessary corrections in his general map of Russia (1734), but retained, in regard to Yezo and Japan, a strangely unfortunate composition of Dutch and Strahlenberg accounts, and put Nipon (Hondo) much too far to the east. In these cartographical aids Spangberg found only errors and confusion, and he got about the same kind of assistance from his real predecessors in practical exploration. Peschel tells that Ivan Kosyrefski, in the years 1712-13, thoroughly investigated the Kurile chain; there is, however, but little truth in this. Peschel gives G. F. Müller as his authority and refers to his book, but the latter says explicitly on this point: "All of Kosyrefski's voyages were confined to the first two or three Kuriles; farther than this he did not go, and whatever he tells of beyond them was obtained from the accounts ofothers." It is possible that Müller's judgment is a trifle one-sided, but it is nevertheless certain that Kosyrefski's description of the Kuriles is based on his own explorations only in a very slight degree, and that he by no means deserves the place that Peschel and Ruge have accorded him. Nor did Lushin's and Yevrinoff's expedition in the summer of 1721 get very far—scarcely beyond the fifth or sixth island—and with them, until Spangberg appeared on the scene, Russian explorations in this quarter were at a standstill.

The expedition to Japan (1738) was undertaken with three ships. Spangberg and Petroff sailed the one-masted brig, the Archangel Michael, Lieutenant Walton and first mate Kassimiroff the three-masted double sloop Hope, and Second-Lieutenant Schelting had Bering's old vessel, the Gabriel. The Michael had a crew of sixty-three, among them a monk, a physician, and an assayer, and each of the other two ships had a crew of forty-four. The flotilla left Okhotsk on the 18th of June, 1738, but was detained in the Sea of Okhotsk by ice, and did not reach Bolsheretsk until the early part of July. From here, on the 15th of July, Spangberg departed for the Kuriles to begin charting.

The Kurile chain, the thousand islands or Chi-Shima, as the Japanese call them, is 650 kilometers long. These islands are simply a multitude of crater crests which shoot up out of the sea, and on that account make navigation very difficult. The heavy fog, which almost continually prevails here, conceals all landmarks. In the great depths, sounding afforded little assistance, and, furthermore, around these islands and through thenarrow channels there are heavy breakers and swift currents.

For nearly a century after Spangberg, these obstacles defied some of the world's bravest seamen. Captain Gore, who was last in command of Cook's ships, was obliged to give up the task of charting this region; La Pérouse succeeded in exploring only the Boussale channel; the fogs forced Admiral Sarycheff (1792) to give up his investigations here; Captain Broughton (1796) was able to circumnavigate only the most southerly islands, without, however, succeeding in giving a correct representation of them; and not until the early part of this century did Golovnin succeed in charting the group more accurately than Spangberg. All of these difficulties were experienced in full measure by Spangberg's expedition. In constant combat with fogs, swift currents, and heavy seas along steep and rocky coasts, he had, by the 3d of August, 1738, circumnavigated thirty-one islands (our maps have not nearly so large a number), and at a latitude of 45° 30' he reached the large island Nadeshda, (the Kompagniland of the Dutch, Urup), but, as he could nowhere find a place to anchor, and as the nights were growing dark and long, the ship's bread running short, and the crew for a long time having been on half rations, he turned back, and reached Bolsheretsk on the 17th of August. Lieutenant Walton, who had parted company with his chief and had sailed as far down as 43° 30' north latitude, thus reaching the parallel of Yezo, arrived a few days later. As well as the other chiefs of these expeditions, Spangberg had authority, without arenewed commission, to repeat the expedition the following summer; hence the winter was spent in preparations for it. So far as it was possible to do so, he sought to provision himself in Kamchatka, and, especially for reconnoitering the coast, he built of birchwood an eighteen-oared boat, called the Bolsheretsk.

On the 21st of May, 1739, he again stood out to sea with all four ships, and on the 25th of the same month he reached Kurile Strait, and from here sailed south southeast into the Pacific to search for Gamaland and all the legendary group of islands which appeared on De l'Isle's map. This southerly course, about on the meridian of Kamchatka, he kept until the 8th of June, reaching a latitude of 42°. As he saw nothing but sea and sky, he veered to the west southwest for the purpose of "doing the lands" near the coast of Japan. Walton, who, in spite of Spangberg's strictest orders, was constantly seeking to go off on his own tack, finally, on the 14th of June, found an opportunity to steal away and sail in a southwesterly direction. In different latitudes, but on the same day, the 16th of June, both discovered land. Walton followed the coast of Nipon down to latitude 33°, but Spangberg confined his explorations to the region between 39° and 37° 30' N. The country was very rich. A luxuriant vegetation—grape vines, orange trees and palms—decked its shores. Rich fields of rice, numerous villages, and populous cities were observed from the vessel. The sea teemed with fish of enormous size and peculiar form, and the currents brought them strange and unknown plants. The arrival of the ships caused great excitement among the natives, beacons burnedalong the coast all night, and cruisers swarmed about them at a respectful distance. On the 22d, Spangberg cast anchor one verst from shore, and sought to communicate with them. The Japanese brought rice, tobacco, various kinds of fruits and cloths, which, on very reasonable terms, they exchanged for Russian wares. They were very polite, and Spangberg succeeded in obtaining some gold coins, which, however, he found were described by Kæmpfer. Several persons of high rank visited him in his cabin and attempted to explain to him, by the aid of his map and globe, the geography of Japan and Yezo. As his instructions enjoined upon him the most extreme cautiousness, and as on the following day he found himself surrounded by eighty large boats, each with ten or twelve men, he weighed anchor and stood out to sea in a northeasterly direction.

It was Spangberg's purpose to chart the southern part of the Kurile Islands, and, as will be seen from his chart,[69]he sought to accomplish his task, and thus complete his work of 1738. The casual observer will, however, find this map unsatisfactory and inaccurate, and will not only be quite confused in viewing these islands so promiscuously scattered about, and which seemingly do not correspond with the actual geography of this region as known to us, but he will even be inclined to suspect Spangberg of gross fraud. This is certainly very unjust, however, and after a careful study of a modern map, I venture the following opinion on this subject: In order to be able to understand his chart and course, the most essential thing necessary is simply to determine his firstplace of landing in the Kuriles, the island Figurnyi, and to identify it with its present name. He discovered this island on the 3d of July. Müller says that, according to the ship's journal, it is in latitude 43° 50' N., and in spite of the fact that Spangberg's determinations in longitude, based on the ship's calculations, were as a rule somewhat inaccurate, which in a measure is shown by Nipon's being located so far west, he is nevertheless in this case right. Figurnyi is the island Sikotan and has the astronomical position of this island on the chart (according to Golovnin 43° 53' N. and 146° 43' 30" E.). This opinion is corroborated by a map of the Russian discoveries published at St. Petersburg in 1787, and by Captain Broughton, who described the island in the fall of 1796, and gave it the name of Spangberg's Island, in honor of its first discoverer. With this point fixed, it is not difficult to understand and follow Spangberg.

Spangberg labored under very unfavorable circumstances. It rained constantly, the coast was enveloped in heavy fogs, and at times it was impossible to see land at a distance of eight yards. From Figurnyi he sailed southwest, but under these difficult circumstances he took the little islands of Taroko and the northern point of Yezo to be one continuous coast (Seljonyi, the green island), and anchored at the head of Walvisch bay, his Bay of Patience. From here he saw the western shore of the bay, reached its farthest point, Cape Notske, and discovered the peninsula of Sirokot and parts of the island Kumashiri, which he called Konosir and Tsyntrounoi respectively; but, as he turned from Cape Notske and sailed east into the Pacific, between Sikotan and theTaroko Islands, he did not reach the Kurile Islands themselves, and only the most northerly island in the group of the "Three Sisters" may possibly be the southern point of Iturup. He then proceeded along the eastern coast of Yezo, took the deep bay of Akischis as a strait separating Seljonyi and Konosir, then crossed in a southerly direction the large bay on the central coast of Yezo, without seeing land at its head, to Cape Jerimo (his Matmai), and had thus navigated the whole east coast of Yezo; but on account of the heavy fog, which prevented him from seeing the exact outline of the coast, he made three islands of Yezo: Matmai, Seljonyi and Konosir. In 1643, De Vries had in his map linked a number of islands together, making one stretch of country called Jeço, and now Spangberg had gone to the opposite extreme.

These explorations engaged Spangberg from the 3d to the 25th of July. He several times met inhabitants of North Yezo, the Aïno people, whose principal characteristics he has fully described, but as his men were suffering from scurvy, causing frequent deaths among them (by August 29, when he arrived at Okhotsk, he had lost thirteen, among them the physician), he resolved to turn at Cape Jerimo, and on his return trip keep his course so close to the Kuriles that he might strike the extreme points of De l'Isle's Jeço, all of Kompagniland, and the most westerly parts of Gamaland.

Spangberg's explorations were far from exhaustive. He but partly succeeded in lifting the veil that so persistently concealed the true outline of this irregularly formed part of the globe. His reconnoissance was to ascertain the general oceanic outline of these coasts.His charting of Yezo and Saghalin was left to a much later day,—to La Pérouse, to Krusenstern, Golovnin, and others. But Spangberg's expedition nevertheless marks great progress in our geographical knowledge, for not only did he irrevocably banish the cartographical myths of that region, and, on the whole, give a correct representation of the Kurile islands clear to Iturup, the next to the last of them, but he also determined the position of North Japan, and fully accomplished his original task, namely, to show the Russians the way to Japan, and thus add this long disputed part of the Northeast passage to the other explorations for the same purpose.

As was the case with that of all of his colleagues, so Spangberg's reputation suffered under the violent administrative changes and that system of suppression which later prevailed in Russia. His reports were never made public. The Russian cartographers made use of his chart, but they did not understand how to fit judiciously his incomplete coast-lines to those already known, or to distinguish right from wrong. They even omitted the course of his vessel, thus excluding all possibility of understanding his work. Hence Spangberg's chart never reached West Europe, and Cook found it necessary to reinstate him as well as Bering.[70]After that the feeling was more favorable, and Coxe,[71]for instance, used his representation of the Kuriles; but new and better outlines of this region appeared about this time, and Spangberg again sank into complete oblivion.

Spangberg's safe return was a bright spot in the history of the Great Northern Expedition, and Beringwas very well satisfied with the results. He permitted him and his crew to go to Yakutsk to obtain rest, and ordered him to return to St. Petersburg the next spring to render in person an account of the results of the expedition. His preliminary report, sent in advance, received considerable attention in the cabinet of the Empress, and caused much talk in the leading circles of the capital. While in Yakutsk, he received orders to travel day and night to reach St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, however, his old enemy Pissarjeff had also been active. Surreptitiously, especially from Walton, who was constantly at enmity with his chief, he had obtained some information concerning the expedition and had reported to the Senate that Spangberg had not been in Japan at all, but off the coast of Corea. This assertion he sought to prove by referring to pre-Spangberg maps, which, as we have noted, placed Japan eleven or twelve degrees too far east, directly south of Kamchatka. This gossip was credited in the Senate, and a courier was dispatched to stop Spangberg. At Fort Kirinsk, on the Lena, in the summer of 1740, he received orders to return to Okhotsk and repeat his voyage to Japan, while a commission of naval officers and scholars betook themselves to investigate the matter. These wise men, after several years of deliberation, came to the conclusion that Walton had been in Japan, and that Spangberg most probably had been off the coast of Corea. In the summer of 1742, he started out on his third expedition to Japan, but as this was a complete failure, undoubtedly due to Spangberg's anger on account of the government's unjust and insane action, and as it has no geographical significance, we shall give it no further consideration.

FOOTNOTES:[69]See Appendix.[70]Note 53.[71]Note 54.

[69]See Appendix.

[70]Note 53.

[71]Note 54.

We left Bering when, in 1740, he was about to depart from the harbor of Okhotsk with the St. Peter and the St. Paul, two smaller transports, and a vessel to convey the scientists, Steller and La Croyère, to Bolsheretsk. The objective point of the main expedition was Avacha Bay, on the eastern coast of Kamchatka. The excellent harbors here had been discovered by Bering's crew a couple of years previous. He had now sent his mate, Yelagin, to chart the bay, find a sheltered harbor there, and establish a fortified place of abode on this coast. This work Yelagin completed in the summer of 1740, and when in the latter part of September the packet boats entered Avacha Bay, they found, in a smaller bay on the north side, Niakina Cove, some barracks and huts. A fort was built in the course of the winter and the pious Bering had a church built and consecrated to St. Peter and St. Paul, thus founding the present town of Petropavlovsk. The place rapidly became the most important and pleasant town of the peninsula, although that is not saying much. In 1779, the place was still so insignificant that Cook's officerssearched long in vain for it with their field-glasses, but finally discovered about thirty huts on that point which shelters the harbor. In the middle of this century it had about a thousand inhabitants, but since the sale of Russian America, Bering's town has been hopelessly on the decline. At present it has scarcely 600 inhabitants and is of importance only to the fur trade.

Its first permanent inhabitants were brought from the forts on the Kamchatka, and in the course of the autumn there arrived from Anadyrskoi Ostrog a herd of reindeer to supply the command of over two hundred men with food, and thus spare other stores. This was very necessary, for although Bering had left Okhotsk with nearly two years' provisions, one of the ships, through the carelessness of an officer, stranded in crossing the Okhotsk bar, and the cargo, consisting of the ship's bread for the voyage to America, was destroyed and could not immediately be replaced. Some lesser misfortunes in Avacha Bay further diminished the stores, and hence, in the course of the winter, Bering found it necessary to have large supplies brought across the country from Bolsheretsk. The distance is about one hundred and forty miles, and as nothing but dogs could be procured, the natives were gathered from the remotest quarters of the peninsula to accomplish this work of transportation. The Kamshadales disliked journeys very much. They had already suffered terribly under the misrule of the Cossacks. They were treated cruelly, and many died of overwork and want, and the rest lost patience. The tribes in the vicinity of Tigil revolted. The Cossack chief Kolessoff, who was constantly drunk,neglected to superintend the transportation, and as a result, much was injured or ruined. Some of those supplies arrived too late to be used for the expedition. Bering's original plan was to spend two years on this expedition. He was to winter on the American coast, navigate it from 60° N. latitude to Bering Strait, and then return along the coast of Asia. But this had to be abandoned.

In May, 1741, when the ice broke up, he could supply his ships with frugal, not to say very poor, provisions, for only five and a half months. Moreover, his ship's stores and reserve rigging were both incomplete and inadequate. Bering's powers of resistance now began to wane. After eight years of incessant trouble and toil, after all the accusations and suspicions he had undergone, he was now forced to face the thought of an unsatisfactory conclusion of his first voyage, at least. Besides, Spangberg's fate could not but have a very depressing influence, for it told Bering and his associates that even with the best of results it would hardly be possible to overcome the prejudices of the government authorities or their lack of confidence in the efforts of the new marine service. Undoubtedly it was such thoughts as these that swayed Bering and Chirikoff, when, on the 4th of May, they called the ship's council to consider the prospective voyage (the proceedings are not known). Although both, as well as the best of their officers, were of the opinion that America[72]was to be sought in a direction east by north from Avacha, and in spite of the fact that theywere both familiar with Gvosdjeff's discovery of the American coast of Bering Strait (1732), and that their observations during the course of the winter had amply corroborated Bering's earlier opinion, they nevertheless allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to search first in a southeasterly direction for the legendary Gamaland. And thus the lid of Pandora's box was lifted.

This fatal resolution was due principally to the brothers De l'Isle, and, as this name is most decisively connected with Bering's life and renown, we must say a few words about these brothers. The elder and more talented, Guillaume De l'Isle, undoubtedly represented the geographical knowledge of his day, but he died as early as 1726. He came in personal contact with the Czar during the latter's visit in Paris, and corresponded with him afterwards. His maps were the worst stumbling blocks to Bering's first voyage. The younger brother, Joseph Nicolas, on the other hand, was called to Russia in 1726, on his brother's recommendation, and was appointed chief astronomer of the newly founded Academy. In this position he was for twenty-one years engaged upon the cartography of the great Russian empire. Under his supervision the atlas of the Academy appeared in 1745, and it was supposed that he carried very valuable geographical collections with him to Paris in 1747. But if this was the case, he did not understand how to make proper use of them, and, as it is, he is of no geographical importance. When he went to Russia, he took with him, without special invitation, his elder brother, Louis, and did everything to secure him a scientific position in the country. Louis seems to have beenan amiable good-for-nothing, who highly prized a good table and a social glass, but cared as little as possible for scientific pursuits. When, as a young man, he studied theology in Paris, his father found it necessary to send him to Canada, where he assumed his mother's name, La Croyère, and for seventeen years lived a soldier's wild life, until his brothers, on the death of the father, recalled him from his exile. In St. Petersburg his brother instructed him in the elements of astronomy, sent him upon a surveying expedition to Lapland, and finally secured him a position as chief astronomer of Bering's second expedition. This was a great mistake. Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère very unsatisfactorily filled his position. His Academic associates Müller and Gmelin had no regard for him whatever, and hence under the pressure of this contempt, and as a result of this irregular and protracted life in a barbaric country, La Croyère, having no native power of resistance, sank deeper and deeper into hopeless sluggishness. His astronomical determinations in Kamchatka are worthless. His Russian assistants, especially Krassilnikoff, did this part of the work of the expedition.

As early as 1730, Bering, as we have seen, came into unfortunate relations with Joseph De l'Isle, and this state of affairs afterwards grew gradually worse. In 1731, the Senate requested the latter to construct a map of the northern part of the Pacific in order to present graphically the still unsolved problems for geographical research. He submitted this map to the Senate on the 6th of October, 1732, that is, two years and a half after Bering's proposition to undertake the Great NorthernExpedition, but this did not deter him, in 1750, from ascribing to himself, on the basis of this same map and an accompanying memoir, Bering's proposition, nor from publishing an entirely perverted account of Bering's second expedition. He clung to all of his brother's conjectures about Gamaland, Kompagniland, and Staatenland as well as Jeço, although they were based on very unreliable accounts and the cartographical distortions of several generations. On the other hand, he most arbitrarily rejected all Russian accounts of far more recent and reliable origin, so that only Bering's and part of Yevrinoff's and Lushin's outlines of the first Kuriles were allowed to appear on the official map. He would rather reject all Russian works that could be made doubtful, than his brother's authority, and even in 1753, over twenty years after Spangberg's and Bering's voyages, he persistently sought to maintain his brother Guillaume's and his own unreasonable ideas concerning the cartography of this region. It was in part this dogged persistence in clinging to family prejudices that robbed Spangberg of his well-earned reward and brought Bering's last expedition to a sad end.

When the second Kamchatkan expedition left St. Petersburg, a copy of De l'Isle's map was given to Bering as well as to La Croyère. De l'Isle wrote the latter's instructions—ably written, by the way—and it was a result of his efforts that the Senate ordered Bering and Chirikoff to consult with La Croyère concerning the route to America,—a very reasonable decree in case he had been a good geographer. As it was, the order simply meant that they were to go according to the regulationsof De l'Isle in St. Petersburg. In the ship's council on the 4th of May, 1741, La Croyère immediately produced the above-mentioned map, and directed the expedition first to find Gamaland, which, it was claimed, could lie but a few days' sailing toward the southeast, and would furnish good assistance in finding America. But La Croyère was only a spokesman for his brother, who in his memoir had constructed his principal reasoning on this basis. He says here that America can be reached from the Chukchee peninsula as well as from the mouth of the Kamchatka River, but with greatest ease and certainty from Avacha Bay in a southeasterly direction to the northern coast of Gamaland. In order to support this supposition he adds: "It grieves me not to have found other information about this land seen by Don Juan de Gama than what is given on the map of my late brother, his most Christian Majesty's first geographer. But as he indicated the position of this country with reference to Kompagniland and Jeço, and as I am certain, from other sources, of the position of these two countries, I am consequently convinced of their correct situation and distance from Kamchatka."

That these miserable arguments exercised any influence upon the ship's council on the 4th of May, would seem impossible, if we did not bear in mind the conduct of the authorities in St. Petersburg. Two years previous Spangberg had sailed right across Kompagniland, Staatenland and Jeço, and thus made every point in De l'Isle's argument untenable. Bering and Chirikoff were familiar with the results of these voyages, and shared Spangberg's opinion. For this reason they could not possibly ascribeany great importance to De l'Isle's directions which were based on antiquated assumptions, but on the other hand, they had neither moral nor practical independence enough to take their own course. The government laws, and especially the Senate decrees, bound their hands. They were to submit all important measures to the action of a commission, and were far from being sovereign commanders in any modern sense. Under these circumstances they found it advisable, and possibly necessary, to act in accordance with the opinion of these learned scholars, so as to be able later to defend themselves in every particular against the criticisms of the Academy. Hence the commission resolved that the expedition should first find the northern coast of Gamaland, follow this coast in an easterly direction to America, and turn back in time to be at home in Avacha Bay by the end of September. In this way their ships were carried far into the Pacific and away from the Aleutian chain of islands, which, like the thread of Ariadne, would speedily have led them to the western continent.

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