34 From the chart; on p. 114 of text it is given as 53° 01' 45". Krassilnikoff (see note 19), made it N. Lat. 53° 01' and 158° 10' E. Lon. from Greenwich, from eclipses of Jupiter's satellites.
35 Lieut. Onatsevich in Report Russ. Hydrographic office, 1878.
36 Oskoi (error for Ooskoi), on most early charts; sometimes Osnoi (error for Uzhnoi=southern).
37 From the chart; the text, p. 114, makes it 51° 03'.
RESUMÉ OF THE RESULTS.
Bering had brought a party, together with supplies and material, over the rough and difficult but long-traveled routes to Okhotsk. Wherever he went he found settlements and roads such as they were. He transported his material to Bolsheretsk and from there across the peninsula to Lower Kamchatka settlement. It would have been much easier and shorter to have doubled the peninsula and taken his stores by sea; one of his party had already explored the straits near Cape Lopatka, but there was the chance of disaster in this plan and, with his stores on terra firma, Bering cannot be blamed for taking the land route; especially as the difficulties would not inconvenience him personally. He succeeded in getting his stores and shipwrights to the place designated and there prepared himself for the voyage. In all this there was difficulty and trouble enough of a certain kind. That it all was surmounted with success is very creditable to Bering and his officers. But to call it exceptionally heroic or extraordinary, is to forget the hundreds of others who preceded Bering, without the strong arm of the government at their backs, who made the trails he followed, who founded the settlements at which he rested, who raised the dogs, the horses and the cattle which were used or consumed by his party.
Whatever praise we may feel due to Bering and his companions, and it is certainly no stinted allowance, the appreciation of their struggles cannot fail to include with justice, the still more remarkable and nearly forgotten pioneer labors of the undaunted Siberiaks, who paved the way, not only for Bering's weary journey, but for the slow yet never ceasing march of civilization.
After leaving port Bering traced the shores of Kamchatka and eastern Siberia as far as East Cape. Thence he sailed in a northeasterly direction. At 3 P.M., Aug. 14th, land was seen astern; the vessel continued in the same direction until 3 P.M. the next afternoon, having, at most, sailed about twenty-four hours out of sight of land but in shallow water. Bering then concluded he had gone far enough to show the separation of Asia from America, or any land to the eastward. No doubt he was influenced by the testimony of the residents of Kamchatka who knew the work which had been performed in this region by Deshneff and others, and also by the fact that the native testimony all pointed the same way. If he was convinced of the truth of this testimony he would have been disposed to accept as conclusive evidence which would not be so regarded by critics. All the evidence shows Bering as faithful to the letter of his orders, honest, patient with the ill-doing or insubordination of others, but perfectly satisfied with the accomplishment of what he had been specifically directed to perform, and with a tendency to limit the specifications to the narrowest construction they would bear. He adventured nothing beyond. In the arbitrary government under which he served, with the violent competition between foreign officers in the Russian service for promotion in rank and pay, who can criticise him for the prudence and caution which kept him well within his instructions? I certainly do not. But to say that he was a cautious, prudent and sagacious officer, is a different thing from asserting he was a daring, adventurous and heroic explorer. I have not been able to discover anything in his career justifying the latter estimate of his character.
At all events in the present case it must in time have occurred to him, or have been suggested by his officers or by the Kamchatkans after his return that the mere sailing off shore in admittedly shallow water for twenty-four hours, was not an absolutely conclusive proof that the continents were separated. Here was a man with a new vessel, a full crew, a year's provisions for all hands, who has come half around the globe, taking three and a half years to do it, building ships and at no end of labor of one sort and another; all this to get into the region where there is a question to be answered; and when he gets there he barely gives twenty-four hours to searching for that answer with a month of the season still available for work; and then starts for home without settling the question; with a right conclusion, it is true, but not of his own discovery, and without securing definite proof to defy critics.
Leaving out of account the continent within half a day's sail which he fairly ran away from, ignorantly, where is there anything adventurous, daring or heroic in such conduct?