[11] This observation, made without the assistance of an ephemeris, or tables of declination, can only be considered as an approximation. It however proves that Sannack and Halibut island is the same, the latitude of that island, as ascertained by captain Cook, being 54 deg. 27 min. As the observation was made about the time of the equinox, the correction for declination might be estimated within a few minutes.
[12] Captain Mears, in the Snow Nootka, navigated this strait in 1786; he named it Petrie’s Strait. In the chart affixed to Coxe’s Russian Discoveries, and by Dr. Langsdorf, it is named the Strait of Chelekoff.
[13] A verst is about two thirds of a mile.
[14] The dates in this part of the work, are according to the Russian style.
[15] This place is named St. Paul by Captain Lisianski. We must suppose that since his visit in 1803, the name has been changed in honour of the present Emperor. Dr. Langsdorf merely calls it the new harbour of Kodiak.
[16] This Company was established in the reign of the Empress Catharine II. for the purpose of giving solidity and effect to the fur trade; and the better to promote these purposes, all the islands lying between Kamschatka and the Russian part of the northwest coast of America, were granted them in perpetuity. His present majesty, Alexander I. has extended the privileges of the Company, and graciously declared himself their immediate patron.
Lisianski, p. 13.
[17] This ship sailed round the world in the Russian expedition under captain Krusenstern, and was commanded by captain Lisianski, who has published an account of the voyage. He talks in raptures of her good qualities. “As to the Neva itself, I shall be excused if, with the warmth of a sailor, I declare, that there never sailed a more lovely vessel, or one more complete and perfect in all its parts. So little had it suffered from the length of the voyage, and even from the disaster of striking on the coral rocks at our newly discovered island, that, in a few weeks, it was again ready for sea, and was despatched to the north west coast of America.”
Lisianski’s Voyage, p. 317.
[18] Captain King estimates the height of this mountain at not less than 18,400 feet; exceeding the peak of Teneriffe, according to the computation of the Chevalier Borda, by nearly 6,000 feet. The result of a trigonometrical measurement by the latter, gives 1,742 toises, as the altitude of that mountain above the level of the sea. Vide Cook’s Third Voyage, vol. iii. p. 103. and Voyage fait par ordre du Roi, an 1771-2, tom. i. p. 119.