Unfortunately, however, the principal result of his work remains as above stated. An unhappy fate prevented him from discovering the adjacent American continent. At the narrowest place, Bering Strait is 39 miles wide; and hence, under favorable conditions, it is possible to see simultaneously the coast-lines of both continents.[17] Cook, more fortunate than Bering, was enabled to do this, for when he approached the strait, the sun dispersed the fog, and at one glance both continents were seen. With Bering it was otherwise, for, as we have seen from his journal, the weather during the whole time that he was in the strait, both on the voyage up and back, was dark and cloudy. Not until the 18th of August did the weather clear up, but as the Gabriel was sailing before a sharp breeze, he was then too far away to see land on the other side. "This," Von Baer exclaims, "must be called bad luck."
We may possibly feel inclined to blame Bering for his haste. Why did he not cruise about in the region of 65° to 67° north latitude? A few hours' sailing would have brought him to the American coast. This objection may, however, prove to be illegitimate. The geographical explorer, as well as every other investigator, has a right to be judged from the standpoint of his times, and on the basis of his own premises. Bering had no apprehension of an adjacent continent, partly on account of the Koriak interpreter's imperfect knowledge of the Chukchee tongue, partly as a result of the fact that the knowledge of the times concerning the western coast of America was very meager. This knowledge extended no farther than to 43° north latitude,—to Cape Blanco in California; hence, in the nature of things, he could not be expected to search for land which presumably he knew nothing of. But here we must also take into consideration his poor equipment. His cables, ropes, and sails were in such bad condition, after the three years' transport through Siberia, that he could not weather a storm, and his stock of provisions was running so low that it put an unpleasant check on any inclination to overreach his main object, and this, as we have seen, did not include the exploration of an American coast, if separated from Asia. To explore a new coast thirteen degrees of latitude and thirty degrees of longitude in extent, and make such a chart of it that its outline is comparatively correct, and which, for a long time, was far superior to anything made afterward,[18] ought certainly to be considered a splendid result, when we remember that the objects of the expedition were entirely of a nautico-geographical character. Bering's determinations of longitude in East Siberia were the first made there, and through them it was ascertained that the country extended thirty degrees farther toward the east than was supposed. His observations were based on two eclipses of the moon in Kamchatka in the years 1728 and 1729,[19] and although they were not entirely accurate, they vary so little, that the general position of the country was established. And hence we are not surprised to find that no one has given Bering a better testimonial than his great and more fortunate successor, Captain Cook. He says:[20] "In justice to the memory of Bering, I must say, that he has delineated the coast very well, and fixed the latitude and longitude of the points better than could be expected from the methods he had to go by." Yes, Captain Cook found it necessary to defend Bering against the only official report of the expedition which at that time had appeared, and more than once he puts in proper relief Bering's sober investigations, as compared with Müller's fancies and guesses. Before the time of Cook, it had been customary to depreciate Bering's work;[21] but since that time Admiral Lütke, a hundred years after Bering's death, has defended his reputation, and Berch, who very carefully perused his journals, repeatedly expresses his admiration for the accuracy with which the nautical computations were made. This statement is made after a comparison of results with those obtained by Captain Cook.
Furthermore, as has already been said, Bering was not aware of the fact that he was sailing in a comparatively narrow sound,—in that strait which has carried his name to posterity. He saw nothing beyond the nearest of the Diomede Islands, that is to say, the middle of the strait; and this island, as we have seen, is mentioned in the journal and on the chart, with the latitude correctly given.[22] His name was not immediately associated with these regions. The first place, so far as I am able to ascertain, that the name Bering Strait appears, is on a map which accompanies Rob. de Vangondie's "Mémoire sur les pays de l'Asie," Paris, 1774. But it is especially to Captain Cook's high-mindedness that the name was retained, for it was used in his great work. Later, Reinholdt Forster, who characterizes Bering as "a meritorious and truly great navigator," triumphantly fought his cause against Büsching and others.[23]
But even at the present time, an interesting misunderstanding attaches to this part of Bering's history and the cartography of these regions. In our Arctic literature and on all our polar maps, it is asserted that Vitus Bering, on his first voyage, turned back at Cape Serdze Kamen. That such a supposition has been able to maintain itself, only shows how little the original sources of his history are known in West Europe, and how unheeded they have been in Russia. About a hundred years ago the Danish Admiral De Löwenörn and the English hydrographer A. Dalrymple showed that Frobisher Strait had by some ignorant hand been located on the east coast of Greenland, while it was in reality located on the coast of Meta incognita beyond Davis Strait.[24] A similar error presents itself in connection with Serdze Kamen. It can be historically established that this name has been the object of a double change, and that the present Serdze Kamen on the northern coast of the Chukchee peninsula, has nothing whatever to do with the history of Bering and his voyage. This misunderstanding is, however, not of recent date, for as early as in the first decade after the voyage, it was assumed that Bering's course, even after he had passed East Cape, was along the coast. Thus I find on a map by Hazius in Nuremberg, 1738,[25] and other maps of about the same time, based on Bering's map as given by Du Halde, that the Gabriel's turning point is marked by a star near the coast with the same latitude as the present Serdze Kamen, with the following explanation: "Terminus litorum a Navarcho Beerings recognitorum." This supposition gradually gained ground in West Europe as well as in Russia, especially so, too, as Bering's new expedition and consequent death prevented him from correcting the error, and as there for a generation was nothing more known of the voyage than the resumé which appears in Du Halde's work. Moreover, the manner in which the coast-line in Bering's original map is extended beyond East Cape, has only served to strengthen the opinion. The fact is that Serdze Kamen was a name unknown to Bering. It is found neither on his map, in his own account, nor in the ship's journal, and could not be so found for a very obvious reason—Bering had never been there.
After having passed East Cape on the 14th of August, he no longer sailed along the coast. On that day at noon they still saw land astern, and three hours later, high mountains, but during the succeeding forty-eight hours land was seen neither to the east nor the west.
As we have seen, the journal gives the turning point as 4° 44' east of Cape Chukotskoi, and Dr. Campbell gives another series of astronomical determinations, sent by Bering from Kamchatka to the Senate in St. Petersburg, and these show in a striking way that the turning point was east of the northeastern corner of Asia.
According to these:[26]