This alone promised the empire such commercial and political advantages that the enormous expenditures and the frightful hardships which these expeditions caused Siberia, might be justified. For this reason the government, summer after summer, drove its sailors on along the Taimyr and Bering peninsulas; for this reason, in 1740, it enjoined upon D. Laptjef to make a last attempt to double northeast Asia from Kamchatka, and this would undoubtedly have been accomplished if the unfortunate death of Bering had not occurred shortly after;[62] and for this reason, also, the government caused the charting of the coast by land after all nautical attempts had miscarried.
Any extended documentary proof of the correctness of this view must be considered unnecessary. The instructions expressly state the object of the expedition: to ascertain with certainty whether vessels could find a passage or not. Müller says the same. Scholars like Middendorff, Von Baer, and Dr. Petermann look upon these expeditions from the same standpoint, and have seen fit to give them the place of honor among all the geographical efforts in the Northeast passage.[63] Some Swedish scholars alone have found it necessary to maintain a different view. Dr. A. Stuxberg and Prof. Th.
M. Fries in Upsala have published accounts of the history of the Northeast passage, in which not a word about these expeditions is found. Between the days of Vlaming and Cook, from 1688 until 1778, they find nothing to be said of explorations in this part of the world, and the charting of these waters does not, in their opinion, seem to have any connection with the history of the Northeast passage. Prof. Fries attempts to justify this strange method of treatment by the assertion that those expeditions did not seek the navigation of the Northeast passage, and did not undertake to sail a ship from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But what authority, what historical foundation, have such assertions? Simply because the Russians parceled out this work and went at it in a sensible manner; because they did not loudly proclaim their intention to sail directly from the Dwina to Japan; because they had been instructed by the visionary and fatal attempts of West Europe,—yes, one is almost tempted to say, just because those Russian expeditions alone are of any importance in the early history of the passage, the Swedish historians pass them by; Prof. Fries has even ventured the assertion that the discovery of the Northeast passage by these Russian expeditions, one hundred and thirty-seven years before Nordenskjöld, is a discovery hitherto unsurmised by anyone but the author of this work. I am not disposed to wrangle about words, and still less to interfere with anyone's well-earned privileges. By the discovery of the Northeast passage, I understand that work of geographical exploration, that determination of the distribution of land and water along the northern boundary of the Old World, that traversing and charting of the coast which showed the existence of the passage, but not the nautical utilization of it. This is the European interpretation of this question. In any other sense McClure did not discover the Northwest passage. If it is permissible to speak of the discovery of the Northeast passage after the time of Bering and the Great Northern Expedition, it is equally permissible to speak of the discovery of the Northwest passage after the time of the great English expeditions. If some future Nordenskjöld should take it into his head to choose these waters as the scene of some great nautical achievement, McClure, according to Prof. Fries's historical maxims, could not even find a place in the history of this passage, for it was not his object to sail a ship around the north of the New World. I very much doubt, however, that the Professor would in such a case have the courage to apply his maxims.
Nor does Baron Nordenskjöld concede to the Great Northern Expedition a place in the history of the Northeast passage. The "Voyage of the Vega" is an imposing work, and was written for a large public, but even the author of this work has not been able to rise to an unbiased and just estimate of his most important predecessors. His presentation of the subject of Russian explorations in the Arctic regions, not alone Bering's work and that of the Great Northern Expedition, but also Wrangell's, Lütke's, and Von Baer's, is unfair, unsatisfactory, inaccurate, and hence misleading in many respects. Nordenskjöld's book comes with such overpowering authority, and has had such a large circulation, that it is one's plain duty to point out palpable errors. Nordenskjöld is not very familiar with the literature relating to this subject. He does not know Berch's, Stuckenberg's, or Sokoloff's works. Middendorff's and Von Baer's clever treatises he uses only incidentally. He has restricted himself to making extracts from Wrangell's account, which in many respects is more than incomplete, and does not put these expeditions in the right light. It is now a couple of generations since Wrangell's work was written, which is more a general survey than an historical presentation. While Nordenskjöld devotes page after page to an Othere's, an Ivanoff's, and a Martinier's very indifferent or wholly imaginary voyages around northern Norway, he disposes of the Great Northern Expedition, without whose labors the voyage of the Vega would have been utterly impossible, in five unhappily written pages. One seeks in vain in his work for the principal object of the Northern Expedition,—for the leading idea that made these magnificent enterprises an organic whole, or for a full and just recognition of these able, and, in some respects, unfortunate men, whose labors have so long remained without due appreciation. In spite of Middendorff's interesting account of the cartography of the Taimyr peninsula, Nordenskjöld does not make the slightest attempt to explain whether his corrections of the cartography of this region are corrections of the work of Laptjef and Chelyuskin, or of the misrepresentations of their work made by a later age.
About the charting of Cape Chelyuskin he says: "This was done by Chelyuskin in 1742 on a new sledging expedition, the details of which are but little known; evidently because until the most recent times there has been a doubt in regard to Chelyuskin's statement that he had reached the most northerly point of Asia. After the voyage of the Vega, however, there can no longer be any doubt."[64]
The truth is, ever since 1843,[65] when Middendorff published the preliminary account of his expedition to the Taimyr peninsula, no doubt has prevailed that all who are familiar with Russian literature, or even with German literature, on this subject, have long since been convinced of the fact that the most northern point of Asia was visited and charted a century and a half ago,—that the details of Chelyuskin's expedition, so far from being unknown, are those parts of the work of the Northern Expedition which have been most thoroughly investigated and most often presented. Nordenskjöld's recognition of Chelyuskin's work comes thirty-eight years too late; it has already been treated with quite a different degree of thoroughness than by the few words expended on it in the "Voyage of the Vega." In 1841, Von Baer accused Chelyuskin of having dishonestly given the latitude of the most northerly point of Asia, and these charges Nordenskjöld prints as late as 1881 without any comment whatever. If he had only seen Von Baer's magazine for 1845[66] he would there have found the most unreserved retraction of them and most complete restitution to Chelyuskin on the part of Von Baer, and would thus have escaped ascribing to a man opinions which he renounced a generation ago. Middendorff is likewise very painstaking in presenting the history of these measurements, and is open and frank in his praise. He says: "In the spring of 1742 Chelyuskin crowned his work by sailing from the Khatanga River around the eastern Taimyr peninsula and also around the most northerly point of Asia. He is the only one who a century ago had succeeded in reaching and doubling this promontory. The fact that among many he alone was successful in this enterprise, must be attributed to his great ability. On account of his perseverance, as well as his careful and exact measurements, he stands preëminent among seamen who have labored in the Taimyr country." And furthermore, in 1785, Sokoloff published a very careful and extensive account of these labors, together with an extract from Chelyuskin's diary relating to the charting of the Taimyr peninsula, which later was published in German by Dr. Petermann.[67] The difference in latitude of the northern point of the Taimyr peninsula as determined by Chelyuskin and by Nordenskjöld is scarcely three minutes.[68]
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Middendorff gives the following interesting outline of these expeditions: