Category: Biographies
The discovery of the Aleutian Islands.--Terrible hardships of the voyage.--Steller's fault-finding.--Bering confined to his cabin.--Deaths on board from exhaustion and disease.--Bering Island discovered.--A narrow escape 164
The discovery of the Aleutian Islands.--Terrible hardships of the voyage.--Steller's fault-finding.--Bering confined to his cabin.--Deaths on board from exhaustion and disease.-...
18. CHAPTER XIX.The stay on Bering Island.--Fauna of the island.--A rich field for Steller.--His descriptions immortalize the expedition.--The sea-cow.--Its extermination.--Nordenskjöld refuted...
19. CHAPTER I.In the great work of Arctic exploration done during the last two centuries, it was first Russia and later England that took the lead, and to these two nations we are principally...
20. CHAPTER II.Vitus Bering was a son of Jonas Svendsen and his second wife, Anna Bering of Horsens, at which place he was born in the summer of 1681. On the maternal side he descended from th...
21. CHAPTER III.The equipment of Bering's first expedition was one of Peter the Great's last administrative acts. From his death-bed his energy set in motion those forces which in the generatio...
22. CHAPTER IV.And now the question is, what did Bering know of these efforts which had been made during the decades preceding his expedition, and which in spite of their unscientific characte...
23. CHAPTER V.Bering now found himself upon the bleak shores of an Arctic sea, with no other resources than those he had brought with him, or could extort from these barren tracts. He again b...
24. CHAPTER VI.Bering turned back because he felt convinced that he had sailed around the northeastern corner of Asia, and had demonstrated that in this part of the earth the two great contine...
25. CHAPTER VII.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...
26. CHAPTER VIII.Arctic exploration has a bewitching power over its devotees. Bering and his companions did not escape the enchantment. Hardly had they returned from a five years' sojourn in the...
27. CHAPTER IX.In the early part of the year 1733, the expedition began to leave St. Petersburg by detachments. It consisted of the chief Vitus Bering (his Russian name was Ivan Ivanovich Beri...
28. CHAPTER X.The difficulties recounted in the preceding chapter are alone sufficient to justify Bering's nearly three years' stay in Yakutsk; but simultaneously many other duties demanded h...
29. CHAPTER XI.In the summer of 1737, Bering changed his headquarters to Okhotsk, and in the course of the autumn and winter, the greater part of his force was transferred to the same place or...
30. CHAPTER XII.The Arctic expeditions made during the period from 1734 to 1743 have only in part any connection with the object of this work. These expeditions were, it is true, planned by Ber...
31. CHAPTER XIII.The men that took part in these early Russian explorations have not yet received their just dues. Not one of them, however, needs rehabilitation so much as Spangberg. He is enti...
32. CHAPTER XIV.We left Bering when, in 1740, he was about to depart from the harbor of Okhotsk with the St. Peter and the St. Paul, two smaller transports, and a vessel to convey the scientist...
33. CHAPTER XV.In the course of the month of May the vessels were equipped and supplied with provisions for five and a half months, several cords of wood, 100 casks of water, and two rowboats...
34. CHAPTER XVI.In geographical literature complete uncertainty in regard to Bering's island St. Elias and its situation off the American coast still prevails. This uncertainty is due partly to...
35. CHAPTER XVII.It is by no means an easy matter to form an unbiased opinion of Bering's stay off Kayak Island. Steller is about our only authority, but just at the point where it is most diffi...
36. CHAPTER XVIII.THE DISCOVERY OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS.--TERRIBLE HARDSHIPS OF THE VOYAGE.--STELLER'S FAULT-FINDING.--BERING CONFINED TO HIS CABIN.--DEATHS ON BOARD FROM EXHAUSTION AND DISEASE.-...
37. CHAPTER XIX.THE STAY ON BERING ISLAND.--FAUNA OF THE ISLAND.--A RICH FIELD FOR STELLER.--HIS DESCRIPTIONS IMMORTALIZE THE EXPEDITION.--THE SEA-COW.--ITS EXTERMINATION.--NORDENSKJÖLD REFUTED...