[39] Note 32.
[CHAPTER VII.]
BERING'S WINTER AT THE FORT.—INDICATIONS OF AN ADJACENT CONTINENT.—UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR THIS CONTINENT.—RETURN TO ST. PETERSBURG.—GENERAL REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF THE FIRST EXPEDITION.
When Bering on the 2d of September, 1728, entered the mouth of the river Kamchatka, he met the Fortuna, which had made a voyage around the Kamchatka Peninsula. Who commanded the vessel on this voyage, can not be ascertained.
Bering wintered at the fort. On the days that it was light, the men were busy at work or receiving instructions, and thus the winter passed without any remarkable occurrences or misfortunes. Spangberg, however, was obliged, on account of illness, to go to Bolsheretsk.[40]
At lower Kamchatskoi Ostrog, Bering became convinced that there must be a large wooded country not far to the east. The waves were more like those of a sea than of an ocean. The driftwood did not indicate the flora of eastern Asia, and the depth of the sea grew less toward the north; the east wind brought drift-ice to the mouth of the river after three days, the north wind, on the other hand, after five days. The birds of passage came to Kamchatka from the east. The reports of the natives corroborated his inferences. They declared that they were able, in very clear weather, to see land in the east (Bering Island), and that in the year 1715 a man had stranded there, who said that his native land was far to the east and had large rivers and forests with very high trees. All this led Bering to believe that a large country lay toward the northeast at no very great distance.
In the summer or 1729, he started out to find this country, leaving the mouth of the Kamchatka for the east, July 6. If the wind had been favourable, he would very soon have reached Bering Island, where twelve years later he was buried. He must have been very near this island, invisible to him, however, on account of a fog; but on the 8th of July he was struck by a severe storm, which the frail vessel and the weather-worn rigging could not defy, and hence on the 9th, he headed for the southern point of Kamchatka. But also on this voyage he did geographical service by determining the location of the peninsula and the northern Kurile Islands, as well as exploring the channel between them, and thus finding for the Russian mariner a new and easier route to Kamchatka. Berch says, that although Bering had adverse winds on the voyage to Bolsheretsk, all his computations are quite accurate; the difference in latitude between the latter place and lower Kamchatka Ostrog is given as 6° 29', which is very nearly correct. Bering likewise determined the location of Cape Lopatka at 51° N. lat.
At Bolsheretsk Bering collected his men, distributed provisions and powder, left the Fortuna with a crew of one corporal and eleven men, and on the 14th of July steered for Okhotsk. After a fortunate, but not otherwise remarkable, journey, he reached St. Petersburg on the 1st of March, 1730. "From the perusal of his ship's journal," says Berch, "one becomes convinced that our famous Bering was an extraordinarily able and skillful officer; and if we consider his defective instruments, his great hardships, and the obstacles that had to be overcome, his observations and the great accuracy of his journal deserve the highest praise. He was a man who did Russia honor."
Bering had thus done good work in the service of Asiatic geography. He had shown that he possessed an explorer's most important qualification—never to make positive statements where there is no definite knowledge. By virtue of his extensive travels in northeastern Asia, his scientific qualifications, his ability to make careful, accurate observations, and his own astronomical determinations, and by virtue of his direct acquaintance with Kosyrefsky's and Lushin's works, he was in a position to form a more correct opinion than any contemporary concerning this part of the earth. In spite of these great advantages in his favor, his work was rejected by the leading authorities in St. Petersburg. It is true that Bering found sincere support in the able and influential Ivan Kirilovich Kiriloff, but to no one else could he turn for a just and competent judge. The great Russian empire had not yet produced a scientific aristocracy. The Academy of Science, which had been founded five or six years previous, was not composed of able scholars, but of a number of more or less talented contestants for honor and fame,—of men who occupied a prominent yet disputed position in a foreign and hostile country—young, hot-headed Germans and Frenchmen who had not yet achieved complete literary recognition. Such people are stern and severe judges. Bering was unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the German Gerhard Fr. Müller and the Frenchman Joseph Nicolas De l'Isle.