These vessels, with a galley and large sloop, were ready to sail for Kamchatka in August, but delays prevented their sailing until September 8th. They were provisioned for twenty months, and destined to rendezvous in Avatcha Bay on the Pacific Coast of Kamchatka, in latitude 52° 53'. Here Chirikof arrived in the latter part of September and Bering on the 6th of October. The harbor had been selected by the mate of Chirikof, Yelagin, who had erected a few buildings. Bering approved the selection of the harbor, and built a fort, and a church consecrated to the Virgin Mary. The harbor was named after St. Peter and St. Paul, Petropaulovsk. The vessels were frozen in all winter, and in May, 1741, the ice broke up, and Bering could supply his ships with rather poor provisions for only five and a half months. It is said that Bering's powers of resistance began to wane after his eight years of incessant labor and anxiety, and the effects of the malarial climate of Okhotsk.

Lieut. Chirikof, the commander of the St. Paul, was well educated, courageous and straightforward; bright of intellect, and thoughtful. The cruel naval service had never been able to debase him. Bancroft says it is remarkable that in all the accounts of quarrels between the heads of the various departments of scientists and naval officers serving under Bering's command, the name of Chirikof is never found. He seems to have had the good will of every one and to have escaped all complaints from superiors.

After the vessels had left port the characteristics of both men naturally came to the front. As in some similar expeditions, Spanberg's for instance, the second in command may have been humanly anxious to make independent discoveries. This peculiarity may be traced in every similar expedition to the present day.

Bering and Chirikof were apparently doubtful about the success of the proposed voyage of exploration, because a council of officers was called to consider the best mode of procedure. This was in accordance with Russian naval practice and orders. It was a great misfortune that the representations of Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère had influence in the council. The brother of Louis had constructed a supposititious map of great islands stretching far east of Japan; and before the expedition left St. Petersburg, the Senate ordered Bering and Chirikof to consult with Louis, who was really no geographer. This was peculiarly unfortunate because the Navigators believed they should sail to the north of east; whereas the project of finding the mythical land of Jean de Gama would require

a course southeastwardly. In 1738 Spanberg had sailed directly over the positions of some of these mythical lands, and Bering therefore knew that the de l'Isle chart was a fraud. Bering and Chirikof could not muster courage to contemn the mandate of the Senate. The action of the several officers of each vessel, under every conceivable emergency, was determined by the Council. The hands of the Commanders were therefore tied.

THE TWO VEssels Leave PETROPAULOVSK FOR THE AMERICAN COAST.

The vessels were made ready to sail. The St. Peter, under command of Bering had seventy-seven officers and men including the naturalist Steller. On the St. Paul Lieut. Alexei Chirikof had seventy-six officers and men among whom was La Croyère. Each vessel had only two boats.

After a prayer service the ships weighed anchor on the 4th of June, 1741, and Bering generously gave the lead to Chirikof. They sailed in company with the St. Paul always in the lead over six hundred miles in a southeasterly direction as far south as latitude 46° 09' where they should long before have seen Gamaland. Had they sailed on their easterly course from Avatcha Bay they would have struck some of the Aleutian Islands, and thence followed that chain to the Continent.

THE VESSELS ARE SEPARATED IN A STORM.

At their lowest latitude on the 12th of June Bering ordered a course to the N. NE., which they continued to keep with unfavorable winds to latitude 49° 30', with the St. Peter to windward, when the vessels separated during the night of June 20th-21st in stormy weather. They were then only one hundred and fifty miles south of Adakh Island. Chirikof held a course to the southward and then to the eastward, while Bering searched for his companion for two days nearly in the vicinity of the separation. A Council of Bering's officers then decided to give up further search; and unfortunately they also decided to make another search for Gamaland, and sailed south to latitude 45° 16', which was reached on the 24th. Thence the St. Peter's course was to the E. NE., according to the direction and force of the wind. He was crossing the Pacific and soundings were useless.

After losing sight of the St. Peter Chirikof drifted to the south and southeastward for two days in hopes of meeting his commander. A council of his officers decided to give up the search and continue his easterly course.

Both vessels were now running nearly parallel with each other and with the Aleutian chain; but Bering had started two and a half degrees farther south than Chirikof. On the 26th of June Chirikof was in latitude 48°, and on the 30th Bering was but twenty miles south of that position; and thence to July 4th he made poor headway while Chirikof made good progress. After the 4th of July Bering held a course well to the NE. and Chirikof kept on his general E. NE. course. Their courses cross in latitude 50° and about longitude 156°, with Bering eight days behind; but thence he made better progress than the St. Paul. Chirikof was within 840 miles of his landfall, and Bering about 780 miles from his. Bancroft says that Bering found bottom at 150 to 200 fathoms, but the Pacific is here over 2,000 fathoms in depth.

THE DIFFEREnt Courses of the Vessels.

From the crossing of the tracks their courses lay about one hundred miles apart and nearly parallel for about five hundred miles, when Bering hauled his course sharply to the N. NE., and made good progress. From the projected tracks it appears that both vessels after the 11th of July had favorable winds, from the northwestward. The weather was evidently clear because Chirikof got observations for latitude on the 12th, 13th, 15th and 16th; and Bering on the 14th and 16th. As early as the 11th when he was yet two hundred and forty miles from land Chirikof had noticed signs of land in driftwood, seals, and gulls; a not unusual condition in that region. The land he was approaching is about 3.000 feet in height, bold and densely wooded from the water to nearly 2,500 feet above the sea. The land which Bering was approaching was the great glacial slopes in front of the St. Elias Range whose crest line is about thirty miles back from the moderately low seaboard.

CHIRIKOF MAKES THE FIRST LANDFALL; HIS PROGRESS THEREFROM.

During the short night (7 hours 16 min.) of the 14th and 15th of July, Chirikof sighted the moderately high land of the west coast of the Archipelago Alexander, in latitude 55° 21' by estimation. At

daylight with calm, clear weather the vessel had 60 fathoms of water at an estimated distance of three or four miles from the bold wooded shore of Cape Addington, "a conspicuous promontory," behind which the hills attain an elevation of 1,500 feet, and are visible over forty miles from seaward.

The ocean current here runs to the northward, and although the weather was calm the brig drifted to latitude 55° 41′ by observation at noon. This would place the vessel ten miles S. SW. from Coronation Island which rises 900 feet above the sea, and has been seen at a distance of thirty-five miles by Douglas. Chirikof was close

to the land with good water under his keel and would see some of the deeper indentations of the Coast; and this probably induced him to lower a boat which failed to find a landing place, or to allure out any canoes, if there had been any native villages. He reports

no exhibitions of smoke, and at that season the Indians were probably at other and inside localities fishing for salmon. All these shores are bold, high and rocky; covered from top of cliff to summit with timber, and exposed to the full swell of the Pacific. Although deep bays make into the high land, and great straits run to the northward, yet the overlapping of capes and points, the mountainous land immediately behind the outer coast, the apparently unbroken cliffs and the absence of clean, white sand beaches would make the careful Commander wary of getting in too close with his vessel.

As the St. Paul passed Coronation Island, Chirikof had a group of small rocky islets on his port bow; but he very likely passed inside of them because the broad opening of Chatham Strait was on his starboard bow, and offered the vessel plenty of sea room. This group was named the Hazy Isles by Dixon in 1787; and on Russian charts they are designated the Tumannoi or Misty Islands. The St. Paul ran northwestward parallel to the coast and doubtless shortened sail, headed off shore and laid-to during the night of the 16th, which ended with rain and fog. The vessel was under the steep, high, wooded ridge north of Cape Ommaney where the elevation is 2,400 feet, and which Vancouver afterwards saw at a distance of fifty-seven miles. That is the Cape which La Pérouse named Tschirikoff in honor of the discoverer; but this headland was hidden from the St. Paul.

On the 17th at noon Chirikof estimated the vessel to be in latitude 57° by dead reckoning. He had no observation, and according to this assumption the St. Paul had made ninety miles in twenty

four hours; and she should then have been up with the remarkable, highly colored, volcanic cone of Mt. Edgecumbe, 2,855 feet above the sea; and to the eastward and southeastward of which stretched the deep, broad, extensive Sitka Sound.* From Cape Ommaney to the southwest point of Sitka Sound the high, wooded coast line is indented by numerous bays, large and small; but the shores are very rocky, covered with timber to the water's edge, and backed by high mountainous ridges also wooded. The entrance to Port. Banks or Whales Bay is in latitude 56° 34'; and there is another called Rocky Bay just north of it. Both are readily made out by a vessel well in with the land. Thence northward to Sitka Sound the coast is guarded by numerous outlying rocky islands and islets. Sitka Sound is a great indentation of about one hundred and fifty square miles in this bold coast; the opening to the southwest is eleven miles wide; and the depth to the northeastward is about fifteen miles to the farthest wooded islets that are not distinguishable from the main land of Baránof Island, upon which the town of Sitka is situated. The depth of water is very great across the entrance to this Sound, and there is no anchorage unless very close under the rocky shores south and southwestwardly of Mount Edgecumbe.

If the St. Paul was close under the shores south of the Sound, the high, rocky, wooded cliffs of Cape Edgecumbe were ten miles to the westward and twelve to fifteen miles distant.

A TERRIBLE DISASTER BEFALLS CHIRIKOF AND HIS PEOPLE.

We have been thus explicit of the appearance of this Sound because on the 17th of July, at the entrance to what he designated a great bay in latitude 57° 15′ (Bancroft p. 69) Lieut. Chirikof, being in need of fresh water, sent the mate Abram Mikhailovich Dementief ashore with the long boat, manned by ten of his best men. She was provisioned for some days, furnished with guns and other arms, including a small brass cannon. It would thus appear that by carrying provisions for some days, and being well manned and armed, an exploration of some distance into a large bay was contemplated. They were given circumstantial instructions, and how they should communicate with the ship by signals. The boat was seen to row behind a small projection of land, and Chirikof's report

*NOTE-"The Coast Pilot of Alaska (First part,) from the Southern Boundary to Cook's Inlet, by George Davidson, Assistant U. S. Coast Survey, 1809, Washington; Government printing office, 1869." 8-Vo. p. 251, with illustrations. Pages 116 et seq.