[2] Who this man Gama, supposed to have seen the unknown continent of Gamaland, was, no one knew. The Portuguese followed the myth blindly; and the other geographers followed the Portuguese. Texeira, court geographer in Portugal, in 1649 issued a map with a vague coast marked at latitude 45 degrees north, with the words "Land seen by John de Gama, Indian, going from China to New Spain."
[3] These instructions were handed to Peter's admiral—Count Apraxin.
[4] Born 1681, son of Jonas and Anna Bering, whom a petition describes, in 1719, as "old, miserable, decrepit people, no way able to help ourselves."
[5] He fought in Black Sea wars of 1711; and from lieutenant-captain became captain of the second rank by 1717, when Russians, jealous of the foreigner, blocked his promotion. He demanded promotion or discharge, and withdrew to Finland, where the Czar's Kamchatkan expedition called him from retirement.
[6] The expedition left St. Petersburg February 5th.
[7] The midshipman of this voyage was Peter Chaplin, whose journal was deposited in the Naval College of the Admiralty, St. Petersburg. Berg gives a summary of this journal. A translation by Dall is to be found in Appendix 19, Coast Survey, Washington, 1890.
[8] A great dispute has waged among the finical academists, where the Serdze Kamen of this trip really was; the Russian observations varying greatly owing to fog and rude instruments. Lauridsen quarrels with Müller on this score. Müller was one of the theorists whose wrongheadedness misled Bering.
[9] It was in 1730 that Gvozdef's report of a strange land between 65 degrees and 66 degrees became current. Whether this land was America, Gamaland, or Asia, the savants could not know.
[10] It is from the works of Gmelin, Müller, and Steller, scientists named to accompany the expedition, that the most connected accounts are obtained. The "menagerie," some one has called this collection of scientists.
[11] Many of the workmen died of their hardships at this stage of the journey.