DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.

The actual discovery of the great northwestern peninsula of the American continent cannot be dated further back than the middle part of the eighteenth century. Its remoteness from the centres of European settlement and from the lines of trade and travel, and its inhospitable climate made Alaska one of the latest regions to yield to the advances of the explorer, surveyor and settler. At a date when the colonies on the North Atlantic coast of America numbered millions of prosperous people, already preparing to take independent rank among the nations of the world, the very existence of this enormous country was unknown. a very early date, however, voyagers from many lands. began their advances toward the far Northwest, and the story of the discovery of Alaska must naturally include a brief outline of these.

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As early as 1542 the Spanish adventurers Coronado and Juan Rodriguez de Cabrillo went up the Pacific coast of Mexico, and sailed for some distance along the coast of what is now the State of California. The memory of the former has been locally honored in California in the name of Coronado Beach. At this time the Spanish considered themselves sole masters of the South Sea, as the Pacific was called, and of all lands bordering upon it. But their supremacy there was soon disputed by the intrepid Sir Francis Drake. He not only ravaged their South American seaports, but, in

1579, sailed far to northward in a little schooner of two hundred tons, entered the Golden Gate, and refitted his vessel in what is now the harbor of San Francisco. Thirteen years later the Spaniards pressed still further up the coast. Apostolos Valerianos, best known as Juan de Fuca, sailed from Mexico and passed through the straits that bear his name, and discovered Puget Sound. There adventure from the south made pause for many years, still a weary distance from the Alaskan peninsula.

More than a hundred years after the Voyages of Coronado, a different people, from a different direction, began to move toward the same goal. These were the Russians, who had already taken possession of the greater part of Siberia, and who were now persistently pushing on to the occupation of the whole realm between the Baltic and the Pacific. They had already gone eastward as far as the Kolyma River, and possessed the town of Nijni Kolymsk, in about 160° degrees east longitude. In 1646 they advanced still further. Isai Ignatieff, with several small vessels, sailed from the Kolyma, and effected a landing on Tchaun Bay, in the country of the Tchukchees. He found the trade in walrus ivory so profitable that his example was soon followed by others. The very next year the Cossack Simeon Deshneff, with four vessels, sailed eastward, to take possession of all the land in the name of the Russian crown. The Anadyr River, of which reports had been heard from the natives, was his goal. At the same time, Michael Stadukin led an expedition overland in the same direction. But both these enterprises failed. The year 1648, however, saw Deshneff's venture re

peated. Three ships sailed for the Anadyr, commanded respectively by Simeon Deshneff, Gerasim Ankudinoff, and Feodor Alexieff. They reached Behring Strait, not knowing it was a strait, and Ankudinoff's vessel was wrecked on East Cape. He and his men were taken on the other vessels, and the expedition kept on. Deshneff made his way around Cape Navarin and Cape Olintorski to the coast of Kamtchatka. There his vessel was wrecked and he and his men made their way home overland, surveying, as they went, the Anadyr River. Again in 1652 Deshneff explored the Anadyr, in a boat, and the next year planned a trade-route, by sea, from that river to Yakútsk, on the Lena.

Many other expeditions to Kamtchatka and the western part of Behring Sea were soon thereafter made. Taras Stadukin in 1654 discovered the westernmost Kurill Islands, and sailed round Kamtchatka into Penjinsk Bay. In 1696, Lucas Simeonoff Moroscovich explored Kamtchatka by land, and during the next year the Cossack Vladimir Atlassoff followed him thither and by force of arms made the Kamtchatdales subjects of the Czar. This conquest was marked by wholesale butcheries of the helpless natives, and confiscation of their goods. The conquest of the Tchukchees was attempted in 1701, but failed, as did a second expedition against them ten years later. This latter, however, under the Cossack Peter Iliunsen Potoff, in 1711, had one highly-important result. It brought back definite reports of the narrowness of Behring Strait, of the location of the Diomedes Islands, and of the proximity of the American continent. Then, for some years, all further advance was stayed.

The next movement was undertaken by no less a personage than Peter the Great,

It was at the end of his reign and life. Two passions moved him. One was the zeal for scientific exploration and knowledge of the world; the other, the desire to extend his dominion across the Arctic borders of another continent. Accordingly in 1725 he planned a great expedition, drew up full instructions with his own hand, and delivered them to Admiral Apraxin; then died. His widow, who became Autocrat in his stead, ordered the plan fulfilled, and it was done promptly. On February 5th, 1725, the chief members of the expedition set out from St. Petersburg, their leader and commander being the illustrious Captain Vitus Behring.

The explorers made their way by slow stages to Okhotsk. There they built two ships, the " Fortuna” and the "Gabriel," and on July 20th, 1728, set sail on their adventurous voyage. On this occasion they contented themselves with traversing Behring Strait, and returned without seeing the American coast or even the Diomedes Islands. A second voyage, in 1729, was altogether fruitless, and in the spring of 1730 Behring returned to St. Petersburg without having achieved a single work of importance or won the first fraction of his later fame. But one of the objects of his expedition was presently attained by others, accidentally. The Yakutsk Cossacks, under Athanasius Shestakoff, had been for years fighting to subdue the indomitable Tchukchees, with little success. A party of them took the ship" Fortuna," abandoned by Behring, to make a war-like cruise along

the Tchukchee coast. They were soon wrecked in Penjinsk Bay, and were routed in battle with the Tchukchees. But the engineer and navigator of the expedition, Michael Gwosdeff, made a boat from the wreck of the "Fortuna," and with his surviving comrades sailed to the Anadyr River. Thence they sailed to Cape Serdze, expecting there to meet a Cossack expedition from overland. In this they were disappointed. And presently a great storm arose from the eastward and dove them, helpless, before it. Right across the strait they were driven, to the American coast, Upon the latter, however, they could make no landing. The shore was inhospitable and the storm was furious. For two days they cruised along the coast, and then, the storm abating, made their way back to Asia.

Despite the failure of his first expedition, Behring was received with honors and promotion at the Russian capital, and preparations were pressed for another venture under his command. For several years he was engaged in voyages along the Siberian coast, and to Japan. But in 1741 the great achievement of his life began. His pilot, Ivan Jelagin, had gone to Avatcha with two ships, the "St. Peter" and the "St. Paul." On Niakina Bay he had founded the town of Petropaulovsk, named for the vessels. Thither went Wilhelm Steller, the Franconian naturalist, and Louis de Lisle de la Croyere. Thither, finally,ent Behring, and on June 4th, 1741, sailed for Americ . On June 20th the two vessels were parted by a storm, and did not come together again; nor did Behring and Chirikoff, their commanders, ever meet again in this world. Chirikoff, in the "St. Paul," made quickest progress. On July 15th he reached the