The Project Gutenberg EBook of The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. II.,
No. 2, May, 1890, by Various
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Title: The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. II., No. 2, May, 1890
Author: Various
Release Date: March 6, 2016 [EBook #51382]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAG., MAY 1890 ***
Produced by Ron Swanson
Vol. II. No. 2.
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.
PUBLISHED BY THE
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Price 50 Cents.
CONTENTS.
The Rivers of Northern New Jersey, with notes on the classification of
rivers in general: William Morris Davis
(With seven illustrations.)
A Critical Review of Bering's First Expedition, 1725-30, together with
a translation of his original Report upon it: Dr. Wm. H. Dall
(Illustrated by one map.)
Supplementary note on the alleged observation of a Lunar Eclipse by
Bering in 1728-9: Marcus Baker
Published May, 1890.
PRESS OF TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, NEW HAVEN, CONN.
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.
Vol. II. 1890. No. 2.
THE RIVERS OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY, WITH NOTES ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
RIVERS IN GENERAL.
BY WILLIAM MORRIS DAVIS.
OUTLINE.--Rivers of different kinds: consequent, antecedent,
superimposed, subsequent, adjusted.--Topography of Northern New
Jersey.--Revived and superimposed rivers in New Jersey.--Drainage of
the Watchung crescent.--Re-arrangement of superimposed rivers by the
growth of subsequent streams.--Application of this principle to the
Green river in the Uinta mountains: Powell's and Emmons' theories.--The
Green river probably superimposed and its branches re-arranged by the
growth of subsequent streams.--Anaclinal and reversed rivers in New
Jersey.
Northern New Jersey is drained by several streams which rise in the
Archean Highlands, flow southeastward across the central Triassic plain
and reach the sea near the inland margin of the Cretaceous formation.
What kinds of rivers are these? Such a question can hardly be answered
until we have examined rivers in many parts of the world, gaining
material for a general history of rivers by induction from as large as
possible a variety of examples; and until we have deduced from our
generalizations a series of critical features sufficient to serve for
the detection of rivers of different kinds wherever found.
The generalizations here referred to may be presented in the form of a
classification, following the ideas of Powell, Gilbert, Heim, Löwl and
others, as follows:
_Consequent rivers_.--Those that have in their birth, at the time of
their original establishment on the country which they drain, selected
courses in accordance with the constructional slopes of the surface;
for example, the Red River of the North and such of its branches as
flow on the even surface of the lacustrine plain of Lake Agassiz; the
several streams that drain the broken lava blocks of Southern Oregon;
certain streams and rivers of the Jura that drain the synclinal troughs
of those mountains. Consequent streams may be divided into definite and
indefinite groups. Definite consequent streams are those that follow
well defined constructional channels, such as the axial line of a
synclinal trough, or the lowest point of an anticlinal arch between two
synclinal basins; they are defined in location as well as in direction.
Indefinite consequent streams are those that flow down constructional
slopes, such as the flanks of an anticline, but whose precise location
depends on those minor inequalities of surface that we term accidental;
they are defined in direction but not in location; and they are as a
rule branches of definite consequent streams.
_Antecedent rivers_.--Those that during and for a time after a
disturbance of their drainage area maintain the courses that they had
taken before the disturbance. In Powell's original definition of this
class of rivers, he said that the valleys of the Uinta mountains are
occupied by "drainage that was established antecedent to the
corrugation or displacement of the beds by faulting or folding."[1] No
limit is set to the amount of corrugation or displacement or to the
strength of the faulting or folding. It therefore seems advisable to
consider what variations there may be from the strongly marked
antecedent type; one extreme being in those cases where the
displacement was a minimum and the perseverance of the streams a
maximum, the other where the displacement was a maximum and the
successful perseverance of the streams a minimum, or zero. The simplest
examples of antecedent rivers are therefore found in regions that have
been broadly elevated with the gentlest changes of slope, so as to
enter a new cycle of topographic development, all the streams retaining
their previous courses, but gaining ability to deepen their former
channels down to the new baselevel; such streams may be called
"revived." Examples of revived streams are very common; nearly all the
streams of the Highlands of New Jersey are of this kind; all the
streams of central and western Pennsylvania seem to belong in the same
class. From these simple and common examples, we shall some day, when
our knowledge of rivers is better developed, be able to form a complete
series leading to what is generally understood as the typical
antecedent river, which has outlived deformation as well as elevation
without suffering either deflection or ponding. Large rivers of strong
slope, well enclosed in steep-sided valleys, or in other words vigorous
adolescent rivers have the best opportunity to persist across a belt of
rising or writhing country,[2] because a great deformation would be
required to throw them from their courses. Small streams or large ones
of faint slope in an open low country are more easily deflected. From
the typical antecedent river, the series may be continued by examples
in which even the larger streams are less or more ponded or deflected
by the deformation, until at the end of the series there is a complete
extinction of the antecedent drainage and the establishment of an
entirely original consequent drainage. The perfectly typical antecedent
river, in the middle of this series, is certainly of rare occurrence,
and is perhaps unknown.
[Footnote 1: Colorado river of the West, 163.]
[Footnote 2: Stur's expression "Gebirgshub oder Gebirgschub" suggested
to me the terms here employed.]
Consequent streams, whose course is taken on a relatively thin,
unconformably overlying mass, for a time preserve their initial
courses, even though they may be quite out of accord with the
underlying structures on which they have descended. Such streams were
first recognized by Marvine, and afterwards named "superimposed,"
"inherited" or "epigenetic" by various authors. A full collection of
examples of this class should begin with streams that depart from true
consequent courses only locally, where they have discovered a small
portion of the underlying formation, like the Merrimack at Manchester
and other water-power towns of New Hampshire, where the stream has sunk
upon rocky ledges beneath the surface drift and sands; or like the
Mississippi and other rivers in Minnesota which have in places cut
through the drift sheet to the underlying crystallines. The series
would conclude with streams that have stripped off the cover on which
they were consequent, and have thus become superimposed on the
underlying formation in their whole length.
There is a curious intermediate type of drainage lately recognized by
McGee in the southern states, a superimposed drainage that is not
inconsequent upon the buried surface beneath the unconformably
overlying surface layer. It occurs in regions where a well-marked
drainage had been established; a brief submergence then allowed the
deposition of a relatively thin mask of sediments; an elevation brought
the masked surface up again, and as it rose, the streams took
possession of lines essentially identical with the courses of their
ancestors, because the mask of newer deposits had not extinguished the
antecedent topography. McGee proposes to call such streams
"resurrected."
Rivers of all classes as a rule develop during their adolescence and
more mature growth certain "subsequent" branches that were not in any
way represented in the early youth of the system. Thus the indefinite
members of the consequent drainage of the Jura mountains have developed
subsequent streams on soft beds of monoclinal and anticlinal
structures, where there could not possibly have been any consequent
drainage lines at the birth of this system, unless we admit the
supposed fracturing of the anticlinal crests, which seems unnecessary
to say the least. Even in the simplest style of drainage, growing on a
level surface, many of the branches must be "subsequent," or as McGee
has called them in such cases, "autogenetic."
Rivers of all classes are subject to spontaneous re-arrangement or
adjustment of their courses to a greater or less extent, in accordance
with the weaker structural lines. This results from the migration of
divides and the consequent abstraction or capture of one stream by
another. The capture is generally made by the headward development of
some subsequent branch. But after this kind of change has advanced to a
certain extent, the divides become stable, and further change ceases.
The rivers may then be said to be maturely adjusted. Under certain
conditions, chiefly great initial altitude of surface, and great
diversity of structure, that is, in mountainous regions, the changes
arising from adjustments of this spontaneous kind are very great, so
that the courses of a river's middle age may have little resemblance to
those of its youth, as Löwl has pointed out and as I have tried to show
in the case of the Pennsylvanian rivers. It may be difficult to
recognize in such cases whether the youthful courses of a river system
were consequent, antecedent or superimposed. Adjustments of this kind
were not discussed by Powell, although he makes brief mention of what I
have called subsequent streams. The first appreciation that I gained of
river adjustments came from the writings of Löwl; but I have since
found that the general principles governing their opportunity were
stated by Gilbert in his monograph on the Henry Mountains of Utah (pp.
141, 149), and by Heim in his Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung (i, 272,
etc., ii, 79, 320).
Where do the rivers of northern New Jersey stand in this general scheme
of river classification? We must again postpone the answer to the
question, while reviewing the history of the general geographical
development of the region.[3]
[Footnote 3: The more detailed statement of this history may be found
in an essay prepared by the author with the collaboration of Mr. J. W.
Wood, Jr., of the class of 1888 in Harvard College, the study being
undertaken as a joint thesis by instructor and student in a second
course in Physical Geography. The essay is published in the Proceedings
of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1889.]
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The topography of northern New Jersey may be briefly described as made
up of valleys and lowlands that have been etched in the now elevated
surface of what may be called the Schooley peneplain on the Cretaceous
baselevel. The topographical atlas of New Jersey should be constantly
referred to, in order to follow such a statement as this; but in order
that the reader may without undue difficulty apprehend the meaning of
my descriptions and recognize the various localities yet to be named
without the trouble of searching for them on the maps of the atlas, I
have attempted to draw a generalized bird's eye view of northern New
Jersey, as it would be seen by an observer about seventy miles
vertically above the center of southern New Jersey. The meridians are
vertical and east and west lines are horizontal, but oblique azimuths
are foreshortened. The result is hardly more than a geographical
caricature, and I publish it in part to experiment upon the usefulness
of so imperfect an effort. An active imagination may perceive the long
even crest line of Kittatinny Mountain on the northwest, rising beyond
the rolling floor of the Kittatinny Valley, as the great Alleghany
limestone lowland is here called; then come the Highland plateaus, of
accordant altitude one with another, but without the mesa-like margin
that my pen has not known how to avoid indicating. The Central plain
lies in the foreground, diversified by the various trap ridges that
rise above its surface; First and Second mountains of the double
Watchung crescent near the Highlands; Sourland Mountain in the
southwest; and Rocky Hill, the southwestern re-appearance of the
Palisades intrusive trap sheet, lying a little nearer to us. The
Central plain is also diversified by the Fall-line, a slight but rather
distinct break in its surface from Trenton (Tr.) on the Delaware to a
little below New Brunswick (N. B.) on the Raritan. The important
drainage lines are: the Delaware, forming the western boundary of the
State, trenching Kittatinny Mountain at the Water Gap, cutting a deep
transverse valley through the Highlands where it receives longitudinal
branches, and a shallower trench across the Kittatinny lowland and the
Central plain; the Raritan, whose north and south branches head in the
Highlands, while the Millstone joins it from south of the fall-line,
cutting through Rocky Hill near Princeton (Pr.) on the way; and the
Pequannock-Passaic, rising in the Highlands, gathering tributaries in
the low basin behind the Watchung ridges, and escaping to the front
country as a single stream, the Passaic, through deep gaps at
Patterson. The terminal moraine, marking the furthest advance of the
second glacial invasion of post-tertiary time, is indicated by an
irregular dotted band crossing the State, from the Narrows of New York
Bay, which it defines, on the east, passing over Second Mountain by the
gap at Summit (S), rising midway in the Highlands over Schooley
Mountain, and traversed by the Delaware at Belvidere (B).
The Schooley peneplain is indicated by the crest and summit altitudes
of Kittatinny Mountain, the Highland plateaus and the trap ridges. This
peneplain once lay low and essentially horizontal, the practically
completed work of the processes of denudation acting on a previously
high land through a long period of time: it is now lifted and tilted,
so that its inland portion rises to the height of the Highlands, which
are its remnants, while its seaward portion descends slowly beneath a
cover of unconformable Cretaceous beds, southeast of the fall-line, and
thus hidden sinks gently beneath the Atlantic shore. The cover of
Cretaceous sediments was laid on the southeastern part of the old
peneplain during a moderate submergence of its seaward portion, before
the elevation and tilting above mentioned (fig. 2, below). Much of the
cover has been worn away since the time of elevation (figs. 3-6,
below), which gave opportunity for the opening of deep valleys on the
soft limestones and slates among the hard crystalline rocks of the
Highlands; and for the production of the broad Kittatinny Valley
lowland or peneplain on the wide belt of limestones beyond the
Highlands; and furthermore for the development of a broad baselevelled
plain on the weak Triassic shales and sandstones, where the old
peneplain has been almost entirely destroyed. The Cretaceous cover
remains only near the coast, where it stood too low to be attacked
while the valleys and lowlands just described were carved out. An
interesting peculiarity in the relation between the newer baselevel
plain on the Triassic area and the old Cretaceous peneplain is that
their surfaces mutually intersect at a small angle along the line which
now marks the visible contact between the Triassic and Cretaceous
formations: the newer plain standing beneath the eroded portion of the
older one northwest of this line, while it rises above the buried part
of the older one and obliquely truncates its Cretaceous cover to the
southeast of the line. Finally, the land as a whole has been raised a
little since the making of the newer plain, and shallow valleys
interrupt its broad surface. It is no longer a true plain; it has
become a pastplain. A few words may be allowed me concerning these
terms, peneplain and pastplain. Given sufficient time for the action of
denuding forces on a mass of land standing fixed with reference to a
constant baselevel, and it must be worn down so low and so smooth, that
it would fully deserve the name of plain. But it is very unusual for a
mass of land to maintain a fixed position as long as is here assumed.
Many instances might be quoted of regions which have stood still so
long that their surface is almost reduced to its ultimate form; but the
truly ultimate stage is seldom reached. We can select regions in which
the valley lowlands have become broad and flat, the intermediate "doab"
hills have wasted away lower and lower until they are reduced to forms
of insignificant relief; and yet the surface still does not deserve the
name of plain as unqualifiedly as do those young lands newly born from
seas or lakes in which their geometrically level surfaces were formed.
I have therefore elsewhere suggested[4] that an old region, nearly
baselevelled, should be called an almost-plain; that is, a peneplain.
[Footnote 4: Amer. Jour. Sci., xxxvii, 1889, 430.]
On the other hand, an old baselevelled region, either a peneplain or a
truly ultimate plain, will, when thrown by elevation into a new cycle
of development, depart by greater and greater degrees from its simple
featureless form, as young narrow valleys are sunk beneath its surface
by its revived streams. It therefore no longer fully deserves the name
that was properly applicable before its elevation. It must not again be
called a peneplain, for it is now not approaching and almost attaining
a smooth surface, but is becoming rougher and rougher. It has passed
beyond the stage of minimum relief, and this significant fact deserves
implication, at least, in a name. I would therefore call such a region
a pastplain. The area of the weak Triassic shales was, until its late
elevation, as good an example of an ultimate baselevelled plain as any
that I have found; but now it is a pastplain, as any one may see while
traveling across it on the train: its doabs are broad and continuous,
and its valleys are relatively narrow and shallow. The Kittatinny
lowland is intersected by streams whose valleys sink below its
generally even, gently rolling surface; but it was never so smooth as
the Triassic plain. It was only a peneplain, and it is now a roughened
peneplain. Perhaps the more adventurous terminologist will call it a
past-peneplain; but I dare not venture quite so far as that. When the
Highlands were lowlands, their surface well deserved the name of
peneplain; but they were lifted so long ago into so high a position
that they are now cut into a complicated mass of rugged uplands. They
no longer deserve the name of peneplain; and if in preceding paragraphs
I have referred to them as constituting an old peneplain, it is because
no satisfactory name has yet been applied to the particular stage of
development of plains and plateaus in which they now stand. Having
tried in vain to invent a term with which to name the Highlands, let me
now advertise for one in the pages of our Magazine.
* * * * *
WANTED: a name applicable to those broken, rugged regions that have
been developed by the normal processes of denudation from the once
continuous surface of a plain or peneplain. The name should be if
possible homologous with the words, _plain_, _peneplain_ and
_pastplain_; it should be of simple, convenient and euphonious form; it
must be satisfactory to many other persons than its inventor; and its
etymological construction should not be embarrassed by the attempt to
crowd too much meaning into it. The mere suggestion that it was once a
plain and that it is now maturely diversified will suffice.
* * * * *
The topography of northern New Jersey is therefore, like its structure,
polygenetic. It exhibits very clearly a series of forms developed under
three different geographic cycles, and closer search will doubtless
discover forms belonging to yet other cycles, less complete and of
briefer duration than these three. There is the tilted and deeply
eroded peneplain of the Highlands, whose initial form may be called the
Schooley peneplain, from the distinct exhibition of one of its remnants
on Schooley's mountain; this was the product of Jurassic and Cretaceous
denudation. There is the younger central baselevelled plain, developed
during Tertiary time, or thereabouts, on the weaker Triassic and
Cretaceous beds; and the associated valleys of the same age that have
been sunk into the weakest rocks of the Highlands. There are the
shallow valleys in the Central plain, of the latest post-tertiary
cycle, requiring the name of this region to be changed from plain, as
it was lately, to pastplain, as it is now. The first cycle, in which
the Schooley peneplain was produced, witnessed the accomplishment of a
great work; it included in its later part, besides various other
oscillations, the sub-cycle when the seaward or southeastern part of
the peneplain was gently submerged and buried to a slight depth under
Cretaceous deposits. The second cycle was shorter; being a time
sufficient to baselevel the softer beds, but not seriously to consume
the harder parts of the pre-existing surface. We are still in the third
cycle, of which but a small part has elapsed. The question with which
this essay opened may now be taken up.
The streams and rivers of northern New Jersey may be examined, with the
intention of classifying them according to their conditions of origin,
to their degree of complexity as indicated by the number of geographic
cycles through which they have lived, and to the advance made toward
their mature adjustment.
The Musconetcong may be taken as the type of the Highland streams. It
flows southwestward along a narrow limestone valley between crystalline
plateaus on either side, entering the Delaware a little below Easton,
Pa., (E, fig. 1). It drains a country that has been enormously denuded,
and during the Jura-Cretaceous cycle of this deep denudation, there
must have been time for it and its fellows to become thoroughly
adjusted to the structure of the region; it must be chiefly for this
reason that it flows so closely along the weak limestone belt, and has
its divides close by on the adjoining harder crystallines, (M, fig. 2).
Whatever its origin, it has lost every initial feature that was
discordant with the deep structures that it discovered beneath the
initial surface; it is maturely adjusted to its environment. It endured
to an old age during the baselevelling of the Schooley peneplain, and
is now a "revived" stream, in at least its second cycle of work. Most
of the other streams of the Highlands and the country farther inland
are also of this well adjusted, revived kind. The streams of the
Kittatinny valley lowland show not only the first revival of the kind
just described, but also a second revival, in consequence of the recent
uplift that has introduced the third cycle of development; this not
being so clearly manifested in the Highlands, where the rocks are
harder, and the valleys of the second cycle are narrower.
Look now at the drainage of the crescentic Watchung mountains; the
curved edges of two great warped lava-flows of the Triassic belt. The
noteworthy feature of this district is that the small streams in the
southern part of the crescent rise on the back slope of the inner
mountain and cut gaps in both mountains in order to reach the outer
part of the Central Plain. If these streams were descended directly or
by revival from ancestors antecedent to or consequent upon the
monoclinal tilting of the Triassic formation, they could not possibly,
in the long time and deep denudation that the region has endured, have
down to the present time maintained courses so little adjusted to the
structure of their basins. In so long a time as has elapsed since the
tilting of the Triassic formation, the divides would have taken their
places on the crest of the trap ridges and not behind the crest on the
back slope. They cannot be subsequent streams, for such could not have
pushed their sources headwards through a hard trap ridge. Subsequent
streams are developed in accordance with structural details, not in
violation of them. Their courses must have been taken _not long ago_,
else they must surely have lost their heads back of the second
mountain; some piratical subsequent branch of a larger transverse
stream, like the Passaic, would have beheaded them.
The only method now known by which these several doubly transverse
streams could have been established in the not too distant past, is by
superimposition from the Cretaceous cover that was laid upon the old
Schooley peneplain. It has already been stated that when the Highlands
and this region together had been nearly baselevelled, the coastal
portion of the resulting peneplain was submerged and buried by an
unconformable cover of waste derived from the non-submerged portion:
hence when the whole area was lifted to something like its present
height, a new system of consequent streams was born on the revealed sea
bottom. Since then, time enough may have passed to allow the streams to
sink their channels through the unconformable cover and strip it off,
and thus superimpose themselves on the Triassic rocks below: we should
therefore find them, in so far as they have not yet been re-adjusted,
following inconsequent, discordant courses on the under formation. The
existing overlap of the Cretaceous beds on the still buried Triassic
portion of the old Schooley peneplain makes it evident that such an
origin for the Watchung streams is possible; but it has not yet been
independently proved that the Cretaceous cover ever reached so far
inland as to cross the Watchung ridges.
Want of other explanation for the Watchung streams is not satisfactory
evidence in favor of the explanation here suggested. There should be
external evidence that the Triassic area has actually been submerged
and buried after it was baselevelled to the Schooley peneplain and
before it was uplifted to its present altitude; other streams as well
as the ones thus far indicated, should bear signs of superimposition;
and if adjustment of the superimposed courses has begun, it should be
systematically carried farthest near the largest streams. I shall not
here state more than in brief form, the sufficient evidence that can be
quoted in favor of the first and second requisites. Suffice it to say
that the overlap of the Cretaceous beds (which contain practically no
Triassic fragments) on the bevelled Triassic strata at Amboy and
elsewhere indicates submergence after baselevelling; and that the
pebbles, sands and marls of the Cretaceous series point clearly to the
Highlands as their source. The submergence must therefore have reached
inland across the Triassic formation at least to the margin of the
crystalline rocks. Some shore-line cutting must have been done at the
margin of the Highlands during Cretaceous time, but the generally
rolling surface of the old peneplain leads me to ascribe its origin
chiefly to subaërial wasting. Moreover, the North Branch of the
Raritan, between Mendham and Peapack (* Fig. 1) and the Lockatong (L),
a small branch of the Delaware on the West Hunterdon sandstone plateau,
give striking indications of superimposition in the discordance of
their courses with the weaker structural lines of their basins, so
unlike the thoroughly adjusted course of the Musconetcong and its
fellows, the Pohatcong, the Lopatcong, and others.
The third requisite of the proof of the inland extension of the
Cretaceous, and the resulting superimposed origin of the Watchung
streams may be stated in detail, as being more in the line of this
essay: has the adjustment that accompanies superimposition
systematically advanced farther near the large streams than near the
small ones? The character of this adjustment should be first examined
deductively. Given a series of streams of different volumes, flowing
southeastward, in the direction of the present dip of the remnant of
the Cretaceous cover, over the former inland extension of this
superposed formation; how will these streams react on one another when
they sink their channels into the underlying Triassic formation?
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
The conditions during the formation of the cover of Cretaceous beds are
illustrated in fig. 2, where the Triassic portion of the peneplain is
submerged, and the shore-line of the transgressing ocean has reached
the margin of the crystalline rocks. The waste from the crystallines is
spread out as a series of gravels, sands and marls on the baselevelled
Triassic area.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
Then follows the elevation and tilting of the peneplain with the cover
on its back; and with this regression of the sea, there is an
equivalent gain of new land; a smooth gently sloping plain is revealed
as the shore line retreats; streams run out across it from the
crystalline area, or begin on its open surface, growing mouthward as
the land rises. Three such streams, A, C, D, are shown in fig. 3; their
opportunity for deep valley-cutting is indicated by the depth of the
new baselevel, BL, below the general surface of the country. While
these streams are deepening their channels in the Cretaceous cover,
which is unshaded with marginal contour lines in the figures, their
subsequent, autogenetic branches are irregularly disposed, because
there is no lateral variation of structure to guide them; but after a
time, the baselevelled surface of the buried Triassic beds is reached,
as is shown by linear shading in the valley bottoms of figs. 4, 5, 6,
7. The growth of the subsequent branches then developed, will be along
the strike of the Triassic softer beds, that is, about square to the
course of the three transverse streams under consideration. The most
rapid growth will be found on the branches of the largest stream, A,
because it will most quickly cut down its channel close to the
baselevel of the time and thus provide steep sloping valley-sides, from
which the subsequent branches cut backwards most energetically. In due
time the main streams discover the particularly resistant transverse
lava sheets in the underlying formation; and then the subsequent
branches of the largest transverse stream on the up-stream side of the
obstructions, for example, F and G, fig. 4, will have a great advantage
over those of the smaller streams. The most rapidly growing subsequent
branch, G, fig. 5, of the largest transverse master stream, A, may grow
headwards so fast as to push away the divide, X, which separates it
from the head of the opposing subsequent branch, J, of the next
adjacent smaller transverse stream, C, and thus finally to capture and
divert the headwaters, H, of the smaller transverse stream to the
larger one, as in fig. 6. The divide creeps while the two opposing
subsequent branches are in contest; it leaps when the successful
subsequent branch reaches the channel of the conquered stream. The
first stream captured in this way must necessarily be the nearest to
the large stream. The diversion of the considerable volume of
headwaters, H, to the channel of the small subsequent branch, G, causes
it to deepen its channel rapidly; the same effect is perceptible in H
for a distance above its point of capture and diversion: the increased
load of sediment thus given to G will be in great part dropped in a
fan-delta where it enters the flat valley of the master stream, A,
(fig. 6).
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
Gaining strength by conquest, other captures are made, faster for a
time, but with decreasing slowness as the head of the diverting
subsequent branch recedes from the original master: and at last,
equilibrium may be gained when the headwater slope of the diverting
branch is no greater than that of the opposing subsequent branch of the
next uncaptured transverse stream. After the capture of a transverse
stream has been effected in this way, the divide, Y, between its
diverted upper portions, H, fig. 6, and its beheaded lower portion, C,
will be pushed down stream by the growth of an inverted stream, V. This
goes on until equilibrium is attained and further shifting is prevented
on reaching the hard transverse lava sheets, Z, fig. 7; here the divide
is maturely established. In the case of a system of transverse streams,
C, D, etc., fig. 7, successively captured by the subsequent branch of a
single master, the divides (Z, Y'), between the inverted (V, V') and
beheaded (C, D) portions of the captured streams will for a time
present different stages of approach to establishment. The divide on
the line of that one of the original streams, C, that is nearest to the
master stream, A, may reach a final stable position, Z; while on the
next stream further away from the master, the beheaded portion, D, may
still retain a short piece above the gap in the upper lava sheet, not
yet secured by the inverted stream, V'; and a third stream, further
away still from the master (not shown in figure 7) might remain
uncaptured and independent.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
It is by such tests as these that we may hope to recognize the
occurrence of partial adjustment in the streams of the Watchung
crescent as a result of their superimposition on the Triassic formation
from its former Cretaceous cover. The greater the degree of complexity
in the tests proposed, the more confidence we shall have in the theory
when the tests successfully meet the facts. Hence the reason for
deductively carrying out the theoretical conditions to their extremest
consequences in order to increase the complexity of the tests that are
to be confronted with the facts. This, as a matter of method, seems to
me of great practical importance in any attempt to decipher the past
progress of geographical development.
The admirable contoured topographic maps of New Jersey, issued by the
Geological Survey of that state under the leadership of the late
Professor George H. Cook, afforded means of applying the deductive
tests above outlined without the necessity of plodding over all the
country concerned; but however good the maps are, it is hardly
necessary to say that they can be interpreted with a better
appreciation of the facts that they represent after an excursion on the
ground has given the student some personal acquaintance with it. This I
have tried to gain on various occasions, maps in hand.
Atlas sheet number six, including the Central red-sandstone area, and
the five-mile-to-an-inch geological map of the state present in the
clearest manner the facts of form and structure involved in our
problem; and to my mind, the correspondence between theory and fact is
very striking. The Pequannock-Passaic is the master transverse stream
of the region: its preëminence was probably due in the beginning to its
gathering, from the unsubmerged Highlands, a greater amount of drainage
than belonged to any other stream that ran southeastward down the
gentle slope of the newly revealed Cretaceous cover. It was at that
time a compound, composite river:[5] compound because it drained areas
of different ages; composite, because these areas were of different
structures. Existing examples of compound, composite rivers are seen in
the Catawba, the Yadkin-Pedee, the Cape Fear and the Neuse rivers of
North Carolina, which all rise on the inland crystalline area, and
traverse the coastal quaternary plain before reaching the sea. But
unlike these, there must have been, when the old submerged land rose
with the Cretaceous cover on its back, numerous small streams whose
drainage area lay entirely within the Cretaceous plain. These were
simple streams, flowing over a structure of one kind and one age. Their
modern homologues are seen in the Maurice, the Great and Little Egg
Harbor and the Wading rivers of southern New Jersey, and I suppose also
in various relatively short streams of North Carolina, such as the
Lumber, Great Cohera and Moccassin.
[Footnote 5: See terminology suggested by the author. Nat. Geogr. Mag.,
i, 1889, 218.]
It cannot be supposed that the original Pequannock-Passaic possessed
the large southern branch, which I shall call the upper Passaic, by
which Great Swamp is now drained;[6] for had this been the case, the
divides between the branches of the upper Passaic and the heads of the
small streams that now still cross both of the trap ridges, must have
long ago been driven to a stable position on the crest line of the
inner ridge. The upper Passaic member of the Pequannock-Passaic system
must be regarded as a branch of subsequent development, guided by some
of the softer Triassic beds when they were reached beneath the
Cretaceous cover, and very successful in capturing and diverting other
transverse streams that were smaller than its master. For some distance
on either side from the Pequannock-Passaic gap in the trap ridges at
Patterson, the existing streams are perfectly adjusted to the Triassic
structure; that is, the ridges are persistent divides, and the lateral
subsequent branches of the master flow along the strike of the softer
shales and sandstones, except where lately thrown off their courses by
glacial drift barriers. This I interpret as meaning that the
Pequannock-Passaic master stream hereabouts made so early a capture of
adjacent superimposed streams that all traces of their initial
discordant courses have been obliterated by the development of
structurally accordant subsequent streams.
[Footnote 6: It should be recognized that the present round-about
drainage of the Great Swamp is a post-glacial feature, determined by
the morainic barrier that crosses the basin from Summit (S) to
Morristown (M): the pre-glacial drainage of the southern part of the
inner crescent was undoubtedly of a simpler and more direct pattern.]
The Watchung ridges extend only about eight miles northward of the
Paterson gaps, but reach thirty miles southwestward. It is therefore
chiefly in the latter direction that we may expect to find examples of
incomplete adjustment following superimposition and capture. At
Milburn, there is a deep gap in First mountain, and opposite this at
Summit (S, fig. 1) a partly drift-filled gap in Second mountain: this I
am disposed to regard as the former outlet of the Rockaway-Rahway
river, which on account of its considerable size was not captured by
the Passaic until it had cut its passage across the trap sheets almost
to a safe depth. The diverted upper portion--the Rockaway--now joins
the Passaic; its crooked course from the Highlands via Boonton (Bn)
being a post-glacial irregularity; the beheaded lower portion--the
Rahway--heads on the ridge of Second mountain, retains the pair of
subsequent streams between the two ridges, and flows in diminished
volume to the sea: the divide between the two portions being in its
mature stable position on Second mountain.
South of the Milburn gap, there are three streams that maintain water
gaps in First mountain, and five head branches of these three streams
rise behind the crest of Second mountain. These must be interpreted as
remnants of streams that once rose further inland, and whose upper
courses have been captured by the victorious upper Passaic; but it is
noteworthy that here, at the greatest distance from the gap of the
master stream at Paterson, the divides between the diverted and
beheaded portions of these southern streams should lie in unstable
positions, back of the crest line of Second mountain. This is exactly
what the hypothesis of a superimposed origin for these streams would
require; and if the complexity of accordance between deduction and fact
here presented be duly considered, I believe new confidence may be
gained in the hypothesis of superimposition, already rendered likely
from other evidence.
The rectangular courses of the streams that cross First and Second
mountains southwest of Milburn do not militate against their initial
obliquely superimposed courses; for, as Gilbert has shown, oblique
courses across tilted beds, alternately hard and soft, will gradually
shift until they follow rectangular courses, along the strike of the
soft beds and square across the strike of the hard beds. Middle Brook,
at the southern bend of First mountain near Bound Brook (B, B),
presents the peculiarity of branching east and west while on the trap
sheet of the mountain: this may be due to a retention here, where the
dip is moderate, of an initially superimposed bifurcation; or to
guidance by fractures at this point where the course of the mountain
changes rather abruptly; the facts at hand do not serve to make choice
between these alternatives.
The lesson of greatest importance in this study lies, to my mind, in
the gradual development of accordant subsequent streams in a region
where the unchanged superimposed drainage would show no such
accordance. Similar adjustment of subsequent streams to structural
features may characterize drainage systems that were originally
antecedent: and with this principle in mind, I have recently read over
with renewed interest Powell's classic study of the Green river where
it crosses the Uinta mountains.[7] The Green river and the smaller
streams of its lateral cañons and valleys are all regarded as
antecedent. Let us examine the arguments on which this conclusion
rests.
[Footnote 7: Exploration of the Colorado river of the west, Washington,
1875, 152-166. See also the geological map in the Geology of the Uinta
mountains, 1876.]
The Green river itself rises many miles north of the Uinta range,
traverses a relatively low basin before reaching the flank of the
mountains, and then instead of turning away, it boldly enters the great
uplift and trenches it from side to side in a profound cañon, flowing
out to the southwest on its way to the Colorado. There is relatively
low ground at the eastern end of the range, several thousand feet lower
than the summits of the range on either side of the Green river cañon,
and many thousand feet lower than the restored crest of the great
uplift; but the river does not follow this open round-about course.
Powell says that the river cut through, instead of running around, the
great obstruction, because it "had the right of way; ... it was running
ere the mountains were formed." Had the mountain fold been formed
suddenly, it would have turned the river around it to the east; "but
the emergence of the fold above the general surface of the country was
little or no faster than the progress of the corrasion of the
channel." ... "The river preserved its level, but the mountains were
lifted up.... The river was the saw which cut the mountains in two"
(152, 153). If this interpretation is correct, the Green river would be
the type of a perfect antecedent stream: but it appears to me that the
case is probably overstated in that respect. Perhaps it would have been
more deliberately stated in a later volume if Powell's intention of
describing more fully the three chief kinds of drainage of the region
had been carried out.[8] Not having seen the region, my comments may
have little value; but the context of Powell's report, the description
of the immense series of lacustrine beds, over a mile thick, north of
the mountains, and the eastward deflection of the river where it
traverses the mountains all seem to me to indicate that the Green was
by no means continuously successful in maintaining its antecedent
course across the uplift. It is by no means a typical antecedent river.
The great series of lacustrine beds up-stream from the cañon, with
conglomerates where they rest on the northern flank of the mountains,
are fully recognized in the report, and must mean that the upper
portion of the river was for a time shut back, or ponded. During part
of this time, there may have been no overflow across the growing
mountains, for the lower lacustrine beds contain fossils indicative of
brackish water.[9] The intermittent growth of the mountains and the
repeated return of lacustrine conditions, with gradually freshening
water, is indicated by the strong unconformities that occur at various
points in the lacustrine beds, and by the change in the fossil fauna.
It must be conceded from this that the upper portion of Green river was
repeatedly ponded back by mountain growth across its middle course; we
therefore have not now any close indication of its pre-lacustrine
course above the mountains; the ancient, or pre-Uinta, upper portion of
the river was extinguished by the lacustrine sediments, and to that
extent the Green river departs from the perfect antecedent type.
[Footnote 8: Geol. Uinta mountain, page v.]
[Footnote 9: Geology of the Uinta mountains, 1876, 84; Chapter III, by
C. A. White.]
In the second place, if the original Green river existed upon the upper
surface of the beds that were at a subsequent date raised to form the
Uinta uplift, it does not appear to be clearly proved that its course
at that early time was closely coincident with its present course in
the mountainous area. The first deformations of the mountain growth may
have temporarily interrupted its flow, as is made likely by the
lacustrine deposits already referred to; and when the rise in the level
of the waters of the lake overtook the uplift, probably at a time of
slower mountain growth than that which first formed the lake, the point
of overflow may have been many miles to one side of its previous
drowned-out course. The moderate elevation of the eastern end of the
range, where it connects with the Yampa plateau, may possibly have then
been a little higher than a point farther west, where the overflow was
consequently located. This is perhaps hardly as probable as the
postulates involved in arguing a truly antecedent course for the river;
but its impossibility is not as strictly proved as would be necessary
before a definite conclusion as to the continuous persistence of an
antecedent river could be finally accepted. Such continuity of action
must be rare and should be rigorously demonstrated if possible.
It must, moreover, be remembered that Emmons[10] is of the opinion that
the Colorado river is not antecedent at all, but is superimposed on the
eastern portion of the Uinta range from a course that it had chosen
upon a sheet of horizontal sediments--the Wyoming conglomerate--which
he supposes once stretched unconformably all over the previously deeply
eroded surface of the uplifted range, where the cañon is now cut. He
quotes facts of two kinds in evidence of this; first, the remnants of
the Wyoming conglomerate still lie on ridges as high as those that
enclose the river cañons; second, the Green and certain of its branches
possess tortuous courses, out of accord with the structure of the
range. It might be added that the wide open valley of Brown's park, in
the middle of the range is best explained as the product of a
pre-Wyoming cycle of erosion by rivers that were extinguished when the
Wyoming beds were laid over the mountains. The strongest objection to
Emmons' conclusion seems to be the great amount of erosion that it
requires; erosion sufficient not only to remove the Wyoming
conglomerate from nearly all its former overlap on the Uinta range,
where it had buried and extinguished a pre-Wyoming drainage, but also
to carry away a vast extension of the formation at the same height
north of the range. It may be best to conclude that both antecedent and
superimposed processes must be called on: for one must hesitate before
admitting that the Wyoming beds stretched all across the country north
and east of the Uinta range up to the height at which the remnants are
now found on the range; it seems more likely that some part of the
height of these remnants is due to a relatively local elevation. As far
as this is the case, it gives reason for regarding the Green as an
antecedent river; that is, antecedent to the local elevation of the
Wyoming beds, but long posterior to the elevation of the Uinta range:
but as the river now flows--according to Emmons' theory--on beds lying
unconformably below those on which its course was chosen, it is for
this reason to be classed as superimposed.
[Footnote 10: Fortieth Parallel Survey, ii, 1877, 194, 205, 206.]
The Green river therefore certainly departs from the type of an
antecedent stream; the departure is distinct in its repeated ponding,
whereby its upper course was broadly and indeterminately shifted from
its original location; and is at least possible if not probable in its
defeat at the line of uplift and subsequent superimposition on a new
line of overflow. The mountains wrenched the saw that afterwards cut
them in two.
A study of the Jura drainage, of which a fuller account may be given at
some future time, has led to the provisional conclusion that many of
its streams show a combination of consequent and antecedent
characteristics. They appear to be consequent on the early stages of
the deformation but antecedent to its later growth, and for this kind
of a stream I have no satisfactory name to suggest at present.
Heim has shown that the Reuss and the adjacent smaller transverse
streams of northern Switzerland near Lucerne are in part persistent
across a series of folds, and in part slightly shifted from one course
to another and ponded in Lake Lucerne; but unless the other ranges of
the Alps rise hereafter faster than they have heretofore, the geologist
of the future will reasonably regard the more mature Reuss as an
essentially successful antecedent river.
The Sutlej and other rivers that escape from the inner valleys of the
Himalaya by deep gaps in the outer ranges, are described by Medlicott
as antecedent to the elevation of the ranges through which they flow:
their antecedent origin being argued from the delta-like structure of
the upturned beds in the outer gorges, as if the rivers were now
cutting down the deformed deltas of an earlier time; but the heavy
gravel and sand deposits in their upper valleys indicates that they
were nearly if not quite ponded for a time during the deformation.
Rivers seem to have the habit of cutting down their upturned deltas.
Bonney refers to several such examples among the rivers that flow
northward from the Alps, and transect particularly thick portions of
the upturned marginal conglomerates and sandstones, which he regards as
the deltas formed by the same rivers at an earlier time, when the
mountain folding had not extended outward as far as it does now from
the axis of the Alps. I have suspected that the same kind of evidence
might be used to indicate that the Delaware above Trenton, between
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is in part of even pre-Triassic origin;
for where it now enters the Triassic belt, there is a particularly
heavy and coarse sandstone, sometimes conglomeratic. Being a large
stream, it might persist in an anaclinal course through the
northwestward monocline formed by the Jurassic uplift of the Triassic
beds, although the smaller streams of the region were then probably
extinguished, to be replaced by a new system consequent upon the new
order of things.
Large rivers, more or less persistent in the face of opposing
disturbance, therefore appear to be generally recognized; but it is
noticeable that those quoted from the Himalaya and the Alps presumably
occupied, at the time of disturbance, well enclosed valleys, from which
it would have been difficult for them to escape backwards or laterally;
and that, even if successful in the end, they for a time suffered
defeat or ponding of greater or less extent and duration. There is no
evidence that the Green river was well enclosed immediately north of
the Uinta mountains at the time of their first elevation; hence the
likelihood of its temporary ponding or enclosure is increased.
It is stated by Powell that not only the Green but even the smaller
streams of the Uintas are of origin antecedent to the mountains. He
writes: "the explanation of the cañons of Green river will assist us in
understanding the origin of the lateral valleys and cañons. The streams
were there before the mountains were made--that is, the streams carved
out the valleys and left the mountains. The direction of the streams is
indisputable evidence that the elevation of the fold was so slow as not
to divert the streams, although the total amount of elevation was many
thousands of feet. Had the fold been lifted more rapidly than the
principal streams could have cut their channels, Green river would have
been turned about it, and all the smaller streams and waterways would
have been cataclinal" (Colorado River, 162).
This appears to me an unproved conclusion, and the evidence of it needs
careful attention. It appears that there are several streams which
descend from the crest of the mountains towards the flanks, but instead
of running all the way out to the margin of the fold, they turn along
the strike of a monoclinal valley, and thus reach the main river by a
short cut. Such streams are cataclinal for a time, then monoclinal. It
is in reference to these that it is said, "the streams were there
before the mountains were made;" and again that "the drainage was
established antecedent to the corrugation or displacement of the beds
by faulting and folding" (163). In approaching this conclusion, Powell
says these streams cannot be consequent; for "valleys consequent upon
the corrugation, which was one of the conditions of the origin of the
Uinta mountains, could not have taken the direction observed in this
system; they would have all been cataclinal, as they ran down from the
mountains, and turned into synclinal valleys at the foot, forming a
very different system from that which now obtains" (166). Nor can the
streams be superimposed, for the "later sedimentary beds, both to the
north and south, were found not to have been continuous over the
mountain system, but to have been deposited in waters whose shores were
limited by the lower reaches of the range" (166). Therefore the
discordant streams must be antecedent.
It appears to me that the possibility of error in this argument lies in
the omission of all consideration of the migration of divides and the
resulting adjustment of stream courses to deep internal structure; but
at the time of the exploration of the Colorado river, this important
process in the development of rivers was not understood. It now seems
only natural that the original, consequent, cataclinal streams, flowing
down the slopes of the range from crest to flanks, should have
permitted the opening of subsequent monoclinal branches on the soft
beds that they discovered; and that the shifting of divides in these
monoclinal valleys should have led to the capture of several cataclinal
streams by that particular one of the subsequent branches that grew out
from the master stream, the Green river itself. Thus it must happen
that the streams "which head near the summit of the range, and, running
down the flank, turn into the Green river, are, in their upper courses,
cataclinal, and when they turn to follow the strike of the rocks into
Green river, are monoclinal" (161): this being a normal result of river
work in cutting down the thousands of feet of rocks of various
hardnesses, here concerned. The smaller streams of the Uinta range are
therefore certainly not of necessity antecedent to the Uinta uplift:
the probability is that they were originally purely consequent, and
that at present they are nicely adjusted to the structures that they
have discovered.
I have learned so much from the doctrine of baselevelling, as presented
in Major Powell's writings, that I shall hope to profit by the lesson
of the Uinta drainage as well: that is, the possibility that an
apparently sound conclusion may be overturned when new processes that
bear upon it are discovered. It is here said that the drainage of the
Watchung crescent in New Jersey is an example of partial adjustment
following a superimposed origin: hence the necessity of watching
closely for the discovery of new principles in the history of river
work that may call for a revision of this conclusion.
There are two other examples of peculiar accidents in the history of
rivers in New Jersey, to which I wish to call attention; both of them
in the latest cycle of the development of the State, that is, in the
cycle which has changed the central region from its even baselevelled
lowland surface, to the pastplain as we now see it. Like the uplift of
the Schooley (Highland) peneplain, the uplift of the Central plain, in
passing from the second to the third cycle, was not uniform throughout,
but was greater in one place than in another. In the neighborhood of
the lower Raritan river, a distinct though gentle slope to the
northwest is apparent in the unconsumed surface of the pastplain; but
this strong river runs southeastward against the slope; it is an
anaclinal stream. The tilting of the pastplain is moderate, and its
rocks are weak; the river is large and strong. Its anaclinal course is
therefore best explained by regarding it as a mild example of an
antecedent stream. But Ambrose's brook, a small stream to one side of
the Raritan, flows northwest with the gentle slope that was given to
the pastplain. Ambrose's brook therefore most likely is not a survivor
from the previous cycle, but is a new stream consequent on the slight
deformation by which the latest cycle here considered was ushered in.
Manalapan and Assanpink are apparently of the same kind. (See fig. 1).
The Millstone river appears to be intermediate as respects origin
between the Raritan and Ambrose's brook. It appears still to lie for
the most part in the channel that it occupied before the elevation and
tilting of the baselevelled Central plain, but the tilting of the plain
seems to have reversed its direction of flow. It rises near the center
of the State and flows northwestward till it joins the Raritan near
Somerville, and on the way it crosses from the thrown or depressed to
the heaved or elevated side of the "fall-line,"[11] and passes through
a deep gap in the trap ridge of Rocky Hill back of Princeton. I believe
there is no other Atlantic river which runs against the fall-line in
this way; and it is certainly at first sight remarkable that a stream
of moderate size like the Millstone should have held its own against a
displacement that sufficed to deflect great rivers like the Delaware
and the Susquehanna from their courses.
[Footnote 11: For an account of the "fall-line" displacement, see
McGee, Seventh Ann. Rep., U. S. G. S., 1888, 616.]
The Millstone appears to have been a stream of the normal kind in the
previous cycle, before the tilting of the Central plain, when it
probably ran southeastward with its fellows, and carried off its share
of waste in the baselevelling process of that time. No other
supposition than this seems consistent with the general history of the
region. It was during that cycle that the deep gap was cut in the Rocky
Hill trap ridge. Then came the deformation of the baselevelled plain,
the relatively recent elevation and gentle tilting that have permitted
the streams to carve it into a pastplain; and with this, the
dislocation along the fall-line. The inclination of the interstream
surfaces of the pastplain leaves no doubt that it was tilted to the
northwest, and to this tilting we must ascribe the present direction of
the Millstone flow: but why did not the accompanying dislocation on the
fall-line throw this moderate sized stream off of its track and divert
it southwestward to the Delaware at Trenton, or northeastward to the
Raritan below New Brunswick. The effect of the dislocation appears with
considerable distinctness along a line from Trenton towards Amboy, in
the less altitude of the general surface of the pastplain to the
southeast than to the northwest of the line, the difference of altitude
of the two parts being about a hundred feet. The persistence of the
Millstone against such a dislocation seems to require that we should
postulate a slower and smaller movement here than that which deflected
the Delaware.
The reversed course of the Millstone cannot be regarded as an example
of inversion following a capture of its ancient northern headwaters by
a branch of the Raritan; for in such a case, surely the inversion could
not have progressed farther south than the hard trap ridge of Rocky
Hill, where a stable divide would have been formed: nor can the
Millstone be regarded as an original stream, first developed and
consequent upon the deformation of the Central plain, for in that case,
it should consist of two separate parts; one part running from the
actual head of the river to the fall-line, where it would turn
southwest and cross the faint flat divide that separates it from the
Delaware; the other part beginning by Princeton north of the fall-line,
and running thence north to the Raritan. The continuity of these two
parts in the actual Millstone seems to be explicable only by regarding
the river as the upper portion of a single larger river that had
reached an old age in the previous cycle; it was then broken in two at
the head of the present river where the greatest elevation of the
Central plain occurred, and thus had its former head waters reversed
from a southeast to a northwest direction of flow across and against
the fall-line break by the tilting of the plain. Only in this way can
the deep gap in Rocky Hill be explained. The river is thus consequent
on the tilting of the plain, and yet antecedent to the accompanying
faulting. It cannot be called an original stream, for it had an
ancestor in its very channel. It is not a purely consequent stream, for
it runs against the heaved side of a fault. It is not a strictly
antecedent stream, for it flows in a direction determined by a
disturbance that occurred late in its life. It is too exceptional a
stream to have a generic name. We cannot expect to find many others
like it.
The result that has been of the greatest interest to me in these
studies is the discovery of well-recorded and peculiar histories in the
commonplace small-sized rivers of our Atlantic slope. We have looked
for some years to the west as the region where river history should be
illustrated, because it was there that the pioneers in this branch of
study taught us the lessons on which our further work must depend. But
home study as well as distant travel has its rewards, and with the
progress of good topographic work on this side of the country we
confidently await much instruction from a close acquaintance with the
curious histories of many of our rivers which we know now only by name.
Harvard College, January, 1890.
* * * * *
_Supplementary Note_.--Professor Albrecht Penck of Vienna has published
a valuable essay on "Die Bildung der Durchbruchsthäler" (Verein zur
Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse in Wien, 1888) from
which the following historical notes are taken to illustrate the
gradual overthrow of the fracture theory of cross valleys by the
introduction of the idea that rivers can sometimes cut down their beds
as fast as the land is uplifted or upfolded beneath them.
Ferd. Römer. Die jurassische Weserkette. Zeit. d. deutsch. geol.
Gesellsch., ix, 1857, 581. The deepening of valleys by rivers and
streams must keep pace with the gradual elevation of continental
masses. The Porta Westphalica has thus been cut by the Weser in the
Wiehen-Weser range, in the northeastern part of Westphalia.
A similar suggestion was briefly made a little later by Bischoff, to
explain the gorge of the Rhine below Bingen. Lehrb. d. chem. u. phys.
Geol., 2 Aufl., i, 374, 382; and again independently for the same river
by Dücker. Zeitschr. d. Gesellsch. f. Erdk. Berlin, v, 1870, 183.
Gümbel explained the course of the Altmühl, a branch of the Danube
which crosses the Frankish Jura in northwestern Bavaria, by supposing
its course was defined before and maintained during the deformation of
the range. Bavaria: Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern,
1865, iii, 756.
Medlicott recognized that many streams flowing from the inner Himalaya
are older than the outer ranges, and showed reason for believing that
they held their places while the outer ranges were tilted up. Mem.
Geol. Survey India, iii, 1865, 6, 122, 127, 157, 163. A little later,
he applied the same explanation to some Alpine rivers. The Alps and the
Himalayas, a geological comparison. Q. Journ. Geol. Soc., London, xiv,
1868, 47, 52.
Wynne explains the Indus and adjacent rivers as of greater age than the
elevation of the Salt Range in northwestern India. Mem. Geol. Survey
India, xi, 1875; xiv, 1878.
Rütimeyer recognized the possibility of uprising ranges being cut down
by transverse rivers, but regarded the occurrence as a rare one,
thinking that lakes would generally appear behind such a growing
barrier. He emphasized the idea that erosion works upstream, which Löwl
has later developed farther. Ueber Thal- und Seebildung, Basel, 1869; 2
Aufl., 1874.
Tietze regarded the persistence of rivers across growing ranges as the
rule rather than the exception. Die Bildung von Querthälern, Jahrb. d.
k. k. Geol. Reichsanst., 1878, 581.
Hayden was perhaps the first to point out in this country the
antecedent origin of certain headwaters of the Missouri in Montana,
where the mountain ranges are frequently cut across by deep cañons.
Amer. Journ. Science, xxxiii, 1862, 305. Hayden's Sixth Report, 1872
(1873), 85.
Reference may be made also to White, Hayden's Tenth Report, 1876
(1878), 52; Peale, id., 167; Bechler, id., 372. General discussion of
valley making is given by Green, Geology for students and general
readers, London, 1876; Hartung, Zeitschr. Gesellsch. f. Erdkunde,
Berlin, 1878, 308.
In spite of the early date of some of these essays, the idea of the
antecedent origin of rivers did not gain general recognition and
acceptance till it was strongly stated by Powell.
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF BERING'S FIRST EXPEDITION, 1725-30, TOGETHER WITH
A TRANSLATION OF HIS ORIGINAL REPORT UPON IT. With a Map.
BY WM. H. DALL.
CONTENTS.--Introductory remarks.--Instruments and Methods.--Sources of
information.--Translation of Bering's Report.--Bering's List of
Geographical Positions.--An Itinerary of the Expedition.--Annotated
Synopsis of the Voyage compiled from all accessible data.--Comparative
Table of Geographical Positions.--Resumé of the results of the
Expedition.
In 1648 the tide of exploration and adventure setting eastward through
Siberia, impelled the fitting out of seven small trading boats on the
Kolyma river. Three of these, in charge of Simeon Deshneff, Gerasim
Ankudinoff and Feodor Alexieff, respectively, reached Bering Strait.
Ankudinoff's boat was wrecked on East Cape, but his party was
accommodated on the others. There were hostilities with the Chukchi,
the two boats were separated, and Deshneff's alone finally reached
Kamchatka. Next year he constructed the trading post on the Anadyr
river subsequently known as Anadyrsk.
There is a tradition that in 1654 a trader named Taras Stadukin
followed Deshneff's route, made a portage across the neck of East Cape,
circumnavigated Kamchatka, discovered the Kurile Islands, and finally
reached the Gulf of Penjina in safety.
In 1711 an emissary named Peter Iliunsen Popoff was sent to East Cape
by the Russians to induce the Chukchi to pay tribute. In this he
failed, but brought back an account of islands beyond East Cape, and of
a continent reported by the Chukchi to exist beyond these islands. Some
statements which he made in regard to the people of this continent were
regarded by geographers of the last century as fictitious, but with our
better knowledge, they set the seal of authenticity upon Popoff's
report and show that his journey was really made.
The political disorders which prevailed in Western Russia about this
period, prevented any attention from being directed to the reports of
these explorations, which were preserved in the archives at Yakutsk.
Somewhat later the attention of geographers was directed toward this
unknown corner of the world and the subject was brought to the notice
of Peter the Great. He took great interest in it, drew up instructions
for an expedition with his own hand and delivered them to Count Apraxin
with orders to see them executed. A few days later, in January, 1725,
he died; but the Empress desiring to carry out all the plans of her
deceased husband as closely as possible, ordered their execution.
Fleet-Captain Vitus Ivanovich Bering was nominated to the command of
the expedition and Lieutenants Martin Spanberg[1] and Alexie Chirikoff
to be his assistants.
[Footnote 1: So spelled by Bering himself.]
This expedition forms the subject of this paper. It has been treated of
by various geographers and biographers, but so far the original report
of Bering, printed in 1847 in the Russian language, has never been
faithfully translated into any other language; while his map has never,
in its entirety, been published at all. Reduced sketches derived from
the maps and more or less mutilated and garbled versions of the report
have appeared in sundry collections of voyages, and upon these the
latest contributions to the history of the expedition have been in
great part based.
Believing that the original report is a document of sufficient historic
and geographic interest to be made accessible to those who do not read
Russian, and that the errors of existing works make a critical review
of the subject desirable, I have translated the document in question
and prepared a general review of the present state of our knowledge in
regard to the expedition.
Bering's Report being written in archaic and badly spelled Russian,
with a singular disregard of punctuation and other literary niceties,
the translation presented unusual difficulties, in solving which I have
had the kind coöperation of that excellent Russian scholar Mr. J.
Curtin. I am indebted to the Reverend Father Richards, president of
Georgetown University, and Father Maas of Woodstock College, Md., for
valuable information in regard to the church festivals and saints,
whose names were utilized in the nomenclature of Bering's new
discoveries. To Mr. Marcus Baker, Messrs. Gannett and Woodward, and Mr.
C. C. Darwin of the Geological Survey; Dr. S. Hertzenstein of the
Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg; Baron
Nordenskiöld of Stockholm, and Baron Robert Klinckofström; Drs. Holm
and Stejneger of the U. S. National Museum, and Prof. Julius Olson of
Madison, Wisconsin, I am indebted for numerous favors and courteous
assistance, and to all of these gentlemen I desire to express my
thanks.
In conclusion I desire to state that I am well aware this paper cannot
be regarded as a finality, but as a contribution to the geographical
history of North America it will not be without its value, while the
fact that I have myself spent parts of three summers in scientific
exploration of the coast visited by Bering and first charted by him,
has greatly helped me in my discussion of minor details of his work.
[Illustration: BERING'S CHART OF HIS FIRST VOYAGE. FROM D'ANVILLES
ATLAS. 1737. The first published map of his Explorations.]
INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS.
In considering the work done by the expedition it is very necessary to
bear in mind the character of the instrumental outfit, if any, which
they might have possessed, and the state of the science of navigation
at the time.
When Bering and his two cartographers left St. Petersburg in February,
1725, the astronomical instrument in use by navigators was the Davis
quadrant or "backstaff," in which the sun's altitude was measured by
sighting without a telescope or tube on the shadow cast by the sun from
one projection of the instrument upon another, the observer's back of
course, being turned to the luminary. The only alternative to this was
the still older astrolabe with which the observer had to look along the
two lines of his angle at the same time, and which also depended upon
sights or spurs attached to a frame. The reflecting quadrant of Hadley
was not invented until 1731 and telescopes were not used on the
instruments of navigation until somewhat later. There were no
chronometers or reliable watches or clocks for use in dividing
intervals of time. Even after the Hadley quadrant came into use, time
was noted by a pendulum vibrating seconds, which could not be used on
ship-board.
A futile attempt had been made by means of tables of variation of the
compass to determine the longitude by comparison with observed
variation in the field. Results by this method approached the truth
accidentally, if at all. Lunar observations were the only means of
getting an approximation to the longitude except the occultations of
Jupiter's satellites, both methods being impracticable on board ship,
with the instruments then employed.
In 1731 the astronomer Halley proved[2] that at that date it was still
impossible to find the longitude correctly by the moon, the lunar
tables being so inaccurate that an error of several hundred miles was
quite possible and an accurate determination would depend upon the
respective errors of instrument, observation and the lunar tables
happening to balance one another. Halley ventured to express the hope
that the tables may be so amended that an error may scarce ever exceed
three minutes, which would correspond to a degree and a half of
longitude, amounting at the equator to a distance of a little less than
one hundred miles. Messerschmidt, who preceded Bering as an explorer of
Eastern Siberia, was according to Middendorf (Sib. Reise, iv. 1, p. 56)
thirty-two degrees out in his determination of the longitude, and the
eastward extent of Asia in this region was underrated by that amount or
thereabouts, on many maps.
[Footnote 2: Phil. Trans. 1731, No. 421.]
One other means of approximating to the meridian remained, in the
observation of eclipses. This from the comparative rarity of these
occurrences in the case of the sun and moon, could with the imperfect
instruments of those days be available but seldom. Owing to the
difficulty of determining the exact time of the first and last contacts
the longitudes computed by these observations were liable to quite as
great inaccuracy as those computed from the lunar tables. Still an
ordinary spyglass would enable an observer to note the time within a
minute or two, and, if he was possessed of the local time, a simple
comparison with the observed time of the eclipse in some locality where
the longitude was known would give a fairly good determination,
considering the instruments and methods of those days. Of the four
eclipses of the moon occurring in 1728-9 two might have been observed
without difficulty by Bering, one would have been invisible to him, and
one might barely have been noted, but in all probability was not
observed by him. In none of the published reports of the expedition is
any mention made by Bering or his officers of the occurrence or
observation of an eclipse, which seems very singular if by such an
observation he was enabled to correct an error of 30° in the longitude
of northeastern Siberia. However, Middendorf states (Sib. Reise, iv. 1,
p. 56) that "Bering and his lieutenant in the years 1728 and 1729
observed in Kamchatka[3] two eclipses of the moon," by which they
corrected the longitude. He gives no authority for this statement.
[Footnote 3: It is possible that an eclipse observed at Ilimsk in
Middle Siberia by Chirikoff is thus erroneously referred to.]
Euler, who had access to the archives of the Admiralty College, while
engaged on a Geography of Russia, mentions (Philos. Trans., No. 482, p.
421) that he was informed that Bering observed an eclipse "at
Kamchatka." This letter of Euler's is copied by Campbell in Harris'
Voyages (vol. II, Book III, p. 1024) and the expression "at Kamchatka"
has led to the statement that these observations were made at the fort
or village of Lower Kamchatka. This is an error since Bering gives no
longitude for the fort in his table of geographical positions. It must
be remembered that the name Kamchatka at that period was applied not
merely to the peninsula as at present, but also to the whole region of
northeastern Siberia, the governor of Kamchatka being located at
Okhotsk. So to come within the probable meaning of the phrases used by
Middendorf and Euler it is only necessary to suppose that the
observations were made somewhere in that region. Lauridsen (Danish
edition, note 34, p. 186) refers to a paper of Struve (Bull.
phys.-math. Acad. St. Petersb., I, 1842, p. 290) containing a table of
geographical positions in Russia, in connection with these alleged
observations of Bering. An examination of Struve's paper does not bear
out the implication of Lauridsen's reference, as Struve not only makes
no mention whatever of Bering's observations there but specifically
states that the first observations of precision made in this part of
Siberia were those of Krassilnikoff who accompanied Bering's second
expedition in 1741. It would seem extraordinary that a determination so
important for geography as that of Bering and his companion should be
unknown to so distinguished an astronomer as Struve who must have had
access to all the archives of the early explorations by Russia. But it
may be perhaps accounted for by the facts that Bering's observations
were necessarily of a very rough and primitive character--as it is
certain he had no instruments of precision; and that, for that reason,
they were not received with entire confidence; so that Struve may have
considered them insufficiently exact to be included with those of
Krassilnikoff and others made with more modern appliances.
From the note in regard to the eclipses which is kindly contributed by
Mr. Marcus Baker and from the other circumstances, it is evident that
if Bering and his party made the observations alluded to, the eclipses
noted were the partial eclipse of Feb. 25 (local calendar), 1728, of
which he might have observed the last contact, or the total eclipse of
Feb. 14, 1729, of which he might have observed the first contact and
the totality. At the time of the last eclipse he was at Lower Kamchatka
post, and as, in the list of positions handed in with his Report in
1730, no longitude is entered for this locality, it would seem that
choice is reduced to the first of the two mentioned; which occurred
when Bering was either at Bolsheretsk or on his way from that place to
Lower Kamchatka, which he reached about a month later. Campbell's table
of positions is credited by him to the year 1728, but my own opinion is
that it was really derived (with various errors, interpolations, etc.)
from Bering's table of 1730.
The ordinary method of getting the longitude of a place, and that upon
which Bering originally depended, as his itinerary table shows, was by
a continuous record of the distances and directions traveled from a
point of known longitude. This record would afford the data from which
the distance on a mean parallel, by means of a traverse table, could be
computed. Laborious, imperfect, and slow as it was, it was the only
sure reliance of the traveler in those days. Whether Bering observed an
eclipse or not, it is certain that his original dependence was upon his
itinerary, that his report was based upon that and that this part of
his work was done as well as the nature of the method would permit. His
silence about the eclipse may be due to the fact that he depended not
upon astronomical but upon pedometric observations, to which the
eclipse may have afforded some corrections. At any rate the pedometric
determination of the distance between Tobolsk and Okhotsk or the
peninsula of Kamchatka was in itself a tremendous undertaking.
I find by a rough calculation from Bering's data that the longitude
resulting from his itinerary from Tobolsk to Okhotsk is 77° 36' E. The
distance in a straight line is about 2,390 miles, but by the route
Bering traveled the distance is a little more than 3,746 miles. The
longitude in Bering's List of Positions is 76° 07', which differs from
the pedometric measurement by 1° 29' (or about 45 miles). On Bering's
map, Okhotsk is located in longitude 74° 30' E. of Tobolsk, while the
most modern observations for Okhotsk put it in 142° 40' E. of Greenwich
or 75° 40' E. of Tobolsk. So that Bering's pedometric measurement was
nearly 60 miles in excess; his revised table (as corrected by the
eclipse?) 27 miles in excess; and his map about 30 miles in error in
the opposite direction. These discrepancies show the inexactness of the
methods then in vogue and also that the pedometric method was not very
much worse than the others in its results. Although there are several
typographic or other errors in his table of itinerary which render
exact comparisons impossible, it may be said that the error of the
pedometric method, including the passage by sea from Okhotsk to
Kamchatka, averages about two degrees or sixty geographical miles. In
the cases of Okhotsk and Bolsheretsk the error is one of excess; in the
case of the cape at the mouth of the Kamchatka river and of the turning
point of the expedition north of Bering Strait, the result is too small
by about the same amount.
That his chart and his revised list of positions should differ as they
do, is quite as likely the result of the careless way in which the
minutiæ of such work were generally regarded at that day, as to any
difference of date, or of intentional modification.
To conclude our review of the instrumental means and methods then in
use, it may be said that the compasses in use at that day were
comparatively roughly made and more or less inaccurate. The variation
was determined in a given latitude by the azimuth of the Polestar or
the sun at setting observed by means of sights attached to the rim of
the compass, which was a method accurate enough for the general
purposes of navigation. The distance run was measured on shipboard by
the log which was in about the same form and perfection as at present,
being a very ancient invention.
The survey of a general coast-line was made by compass bearings on
prominent points, repeated from successive stations, the distances of
the ship's course being determined by the log and the courses by
compass, with corrections for current and the variation. The lines thus
obtained were checked by latitude observations made with Davis'
backstaff when the weather permitted.
Apart from any of the methods mentioned it seems to have been
overlooked that Bering might have corrected the longitudes of the N.E.
Siberian coast by the ordinary dead reckoning kept on board his vessel,
provided he started by adopting the longitude for the southern part of
Kamchatka peninsula which was in common use on many of the charts of
his day. Though it is true that the maps of that part of Siberia north
and northeast from the Okhotsk sea were many degrees in error in the
longitude, this observation does not hold good in regard to the
southern end of Kamchatka. The work of the Jesuit fathers in China had
already determined fairly well the position of China and Korea, while
rude outlines of the northern islands of Japan, Sakhalin, the Kuriles
and the south end of Kamchatka, were added to these on maps of Asia.
The outlines are often very incorrect but it is quite evident what is
intended. In nearly all early maps of this region which I have been
able to consult, as for instance those of N. de Witt, I have found the
south end of Kamchatka in approximately correct longitude. For
instance, in the Novissimae Ephemerides of Manfredio, published at Bonn
the same year that Bering left St. Petersburg, and which might well
have been sent to him before he sailed, we find two charts of the paths
of solar eclipses (Plates ii and iii). On these charts the meridian of
180° from Ferro passes across what is unmistakably the south end of
Kamchatka, though northeastern Siberia remains a blank. This would be a
sufficient starting point and is quite as correct as Bering's
determinations; in fact is within a few miles of the modern longitudes
for the same part of the peninsula. Dead reckoning along the shores of
the peninsula, corrected by latitude observations, would have done all
that was necessary to correct the meridian without observing any lunar
eclipse, provided the surveyor started with such an assumption as
Manfredio's or De Witt's charts supply.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
The general History of China [etc.] Done from the French of P[ere]. Du
Halde [by R. Brookes]. London, John Watts, 1736. 4 vols. 8° with maps
and ills.
This is referred to in the following text by the letter B.
This is the first English translation from the original French edition
of the "Description géographique et historique de l'empire de la Chine"
by the father J. B. Du Halde, published at the Hague in the same year
as the above translation. The text of the original French I have not
been able to consult, though, so far as Bering's voyage is concerned,
there does not seem to have been any material abridgment in the
translation above cited, for an opportunity of consulting which I am
indebted to the Librarian of Congress.
The maps and charts of the original French edition were separately
printed in an atlas by themselves, for the use of those who might
desire to do without the text, under the following title:
Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise, et du Thibet:
contenant Les Chartes générales & particulieres de ces Pays, ainsi que
la Carte du Royaume de Corée; (etc.): Rédigées par M^r D'Anville,
Géographe ordinaire de sa Majesté très Chrétienne, Précedé d'une
description de la Boucharie, Par un Officier Suedois que a fait quelque
sejour dans ce Pays. A la Haye, chez Henri Scheurleer MDCCXXVII. Folio,
12 pp. 42 charts.
The chart of Bering forms sheet 42, and differs from the others in
being on Mercator's projection which indicates that it was copied
directly from an original as stated in the text, and not redrawn. It is
20-3/4 by 9-3/8 inches on the neat-lines and is entitled:
"Carte des Pays traversé par le Cap^{ne}. Beerings depuis la ville de
Tobolsk jusqu'a Kamtschatka."
Beneath the title is a table of four transliterated Russian terms for
fort, post, village and convent, with their French equivalents. This
and certain peculiarities in the transliteration of proper names make
it certain that the original chart was in Russian and that the
transliteration was done by some one not perfectly familiar with both
languages. There are a few errors of the engraver in rendering single
letters "c" appearing for "t" and "r" for "e" in a few places. The
longitude is reckoned in degrees east from Tobolsk to which 67° degrees
when added will give practically the meridian east from Greenwich. The
transcriber of the map from the Russian appears to have been a Dane, G.
Kondet.
That part of this chart east from 112° E. Gr. has been fairly
reproduced by Lauridsen (Chart I) with the omission of some unimportant
names and the addition of a signature (not the ordinary autograph) of
Bering. This is reproduced with a different running headline to
accompany Olson's translation.
The fourth volume of Brookes' translation (pp. 429-440) contains
"A succinct narrative of Captain Beerings's Travels into Siberia:"
with a reduction of the above-mentioned map, on which there is no trace
of the island of St. Demetrius, even its name, which alone appears on
the Du Halde map, is here omitted. Otherwise this version of the map
does not differ from Du Halde's, more than one copy of a drawing
usually differs from another. When Bering started on his expedition he
was accompanied by two cartographers (Bergh, First Voy. of the Russ.
pp. 2-5, fide Lauridsen) Luzhin and Potiloff, and to one or both of
them under Bering's direction the construction of the map in question
was probably due.
When Bering made his report it was accompanied by a list of positions
for important places visited by the Expedition.
Dr. Campbell, while gathering material for his second edition of
Harris' Voyages, procured a copy of this unpublished list of positions
and prints it in his account of Bering's travels, with the comment that
it was sent by Bering from Kamchatka, before his return to Russia, and
to the Senate at St. Petersburg, to which Bering did not report.
Whether due to the transcriber or the printer there are several very
obvious errors in the list as printed by Campbell, and when it is
compared with Bering's own list we see that there are also several
interpolations.
But the positions adopted in the chart, said by Du Halde to have been
brought to St. Petersburg by Bering on his return (a statement
confirmed by the mention of a chart in the report itself), are not
identical with the positions enumerated in the list. This leads to the
suspicion that Bering's first chart was not published, and that the
chart issued was due to a recomputation and revision of his data. This
suspicion is made stronger by the statement of Lauridsen, who gives no
authority, however, that Bering's chart was made in Moscow in 1731,[4]
though this may merely mean that some of the copies which were
distributed to various personages were so prepared.
[Footnote 4: Lauridsen, Am. ed., p. 57.]
These manuscript copies of the chart and report were sent to various
foreign courts, as a matter of general interest, by the Russian
authorities. The copy used by Du Halde was communicated to him by the
King of Poland who had received it as a "Present worthy of his regard
and curiosity" (Du Halde, iv, p. 439, Brookes' ed.). Other copies were
sent to Sweden and probably to England and other countries. In the
journal, "Ymer," of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography
(1884, p. 93) is a short notice by E. Dahlgren of three manuscript
copies of Bering's chart of his first expedition, or rather of charts
embodying its results. Two of these charts are in the Royal archives of
Sweden and measures 58 x 135 cm. One of them is ornamented with ten
colored drawings of natives of Siberia. The other is without these but
does not seem to be a copy of the first as it has a number of soundings
between St. Lawrence and the Diomede Islands which are not on the
former, and some names which are peculiar to it. Both have many more
names than are given on the chart published by Du Halde. Both of the
manuscripts have a legend referring to the coast from the Kolyma
eastward, on the north coast of Siberia, to the effect that it is put
down from older charts and information, doubtless furnished by the
archives at Yakutsk. The third copy is in the possession of Baron
Robert Klinckofström, of Stafsund, Sweden.
Through the kind offices of Baron Nordenskiöld and the generosity of
Baron Klinckofström, the last mentioned chart has been forwarded to the
writer through the Smithsonian Institution for examination. It appears
to be essentially the same as the second of the two charts referred to
as comprised in the Royal Swedish Archives. The result of my
examination of it leads me to the belief that there were two different
charts sent out in manuscript by the Russian authorities. The first,
which I regard as the earlier, and which is certainly more accurate,
shows the island of St. Demetrius in its proper place in accordance
with Bering's Report and list of positions. It formed the basis of
Campbell's engraving which will be referred to later, and of the chart
which appears in the various editions of Du Halde. It is possible that
this represents the original chart prepared by Bering in Kamchatka
during the winter of 1728-9. The second and probably later form of the
chart is represented by the Klinckofström chart, upon which the name
and island of St. Demetrius have vanished and a smaller island in the
corresponding latitude is represented close to the Siberian coast and
westward from the meridian passing through the eastern extreme of East
Cape. This island is named the island of St. Diomede. If it is intended
as a revised position for the island of St. Demetrius of the other
chart and of Bering's Report, it is in conflict with the facts and with
the position assigned to St. Demetrius in the report. No one who had
sailed between St. Demetrius and East Cape could have sanctioned such a
position for the island with honesty. If a different island is intended
the question arises, Why is St. Demetrius omitted? This second chart is
obviously the basis upon which in D'Anville's chart of Asia (1753) the
configuration of the eastern extreme of Siberia is based, and I suspect
that the chart of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg
and the reproduction of Jefferys, were also derived from it as far as
this region is concerned.
It would be rash, in the absence of authentic information which only
the Russian archives can supply, to hazard an opinion as to the origin
of the important difference between these charts. I may return to this
point later. Apart from this, it may be added that the northern coast
of Siberia from East Cape west to Cape Shelagskoi is represented as
mountainous throughout its extent. A legend states that it is laid down
from older charts and information. This relieves Bering from the
responsibility for the fictitious or at least grossly erroneous and
exaggerated form and direction given to Cape Shelagskoi on his chart.
The west coast of the Okhotsk sea and part of its northeastern shores
not visited by Bering are stated to be laid down from "information."
This map is not dated and the blank space in the title left for
Bering's autograph has never been filled. No name of draughtsman or
place or authority of issue are indicated upon it. It measures 51 by
20-1/8 inches between the neat-lines. It is in black and white, the
mountains washed in, the only color being small green trees as a
conventional sign for wooded country. A copy of the earlier chart fell
into the hands of Dr. Campbell and was published by him in his edition
of Harris' Voyages,[5] together with a version of the report which is
more or less mutilated and to which the editor to make his book more
readable has added certain flowers of rhetoric which detract from its
accuracy. Campbell's copy of the map is the most perfect yet published
and the only one showing the island of St. Demetrius in its proper
place.
[Footnote 5: HARRIS, JOHN. Complete collection of Voyages and travels
[etc.]. London, T. Woodward [and others] 1748. 2 v. folio, maps and
plates, Vol. 2, pp. 1016-1041, is devoted to a discussion of Bering's
discoveries, entitled: Book III, Section VIII. "A distinct account of
part of the northeast frontier of the Russian Empire, commonly called
the country of Kamschatka or Kamschatska including the voyages of
Captain Behring for discovering toward the East [etc.], collected from
the best authorities both printed and manuscript."]
In Du Halde's copy and those derived from it the eastern border of the
chart has cut off the island, though in some of them, as in that of
1736, the name remains. The only fault to be noted in Campbell's
edition of Bering's map is the omission by the engraver of the small
bay named Preobrazhenia by Bering and which, though it is not named,
appears on the other editions of the map. The title is as follows:
"An exact chart of all the countries through which Cap^t. Behring
travelled, from Tobolski Capital of Siberia to the country of
Kamtschatka."
The size of the map is 7 x 12¾ inches. It extends on the east to the
meridian of 126° east from Tobolsk which enables the "Isle of St.
Demetrius" (our present Big Diomede) to appear in its proper place. The
editions previously reported have all stopped at the 124th meridian,
thus cutting off the island, whose name sometimes appeared and
sometimes did not.
It will be observed that Dr. Campbell in this paper was the means of
introducing the erroneous and obnoxious Germanized spelling of Bering's
name into English literature. This is a pretty good indication that he
had no autographic documents from Bering himself, and that his
manuscripts were obtained from German sources, or at least had been
transcribed into the German language. In his thorough search of the
literature of the subject and lengthy discussion of the results, Dr.
Campbell undoubtedly gathered the fullest account of the first
expedition which had up to that date been printed. In order to enliven
his history of the proceedings, the good Doctor occasionally rises to
flights of fancy, and the theories he held were long since proved
erroneous.
There are several other English translations of Du Halde's China, of
which the following is the most important:
"A description of the empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together
with the kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet: containing the geography and
history (natural as well as civil) of those countries. From the French
of P. J. B. Du Halde, Jesuit. Illustrated with general and particular
maps, and adorned with a great number of cuts. With notes geographical,
historical and critical, and other improvements, particularly in the
maps, by the Translator." London, Edward Cave, 1741. 2 vols. folio,
maps and ills.
This edition does not show the name of the translator, but he was
evidently a man of no small attainments as a geographer and
cartographer, and introduced numerous improvements and corrections into
the charts of D'Anville, which accompanied the original edition of Du
Halde. A copy of this was presented to the library of Harvard College
by the province of New Hampshire in 1765-6, for an opportunity of
examining which I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Justin Winsor, the
Librarian.
The text of this edition, compared with that of 1736, is as much as
possible abridged, yet contains nothing not in the original, but the
map exhibits certain additions to be noted. This map is entitled,
"A Map of Capt. Beerings' travels from Tobolskoy to Kamchatka between
y^e years 1725 and 1730. With improvements by y^e Editor." It contains
the following note by the editor. "Capt. Beerings probably observ'd y^e
Lat.^d in y^e Principal places thro' w^{ch} he pass'd, tho' two
Observations only are mentioned in his Journal. But M^r Kyrilow in his
Map of the Russian Empire does not follow y^e Author in this respect
for instance he places Ilimski 1° 30' more north, Yakutskoy 2° more
south, and Cape Chiokotskago 1° more south than Cap^t. Beerings;
likewise other places in Proportion. I have reckon'd y^e Long^d of
Tobolskoy from Paris according to an Eclipse of y^e Sun observed at
Hamburg and Tobolskoy, mentioned by Mr. Strahlenberg in his account of
y^e Northern parts of Europe and Asia. This is all that can be done
till y^e return of y^e Russian Mathematicians sent to make observations
and discoveries throughout Siberia." Then follows a line "Inscribed to
Francis Gashrey Esq^r."
The main body of the chart is that of Du Halde's original and the scale
is the same, but the height of the neat-lines is only 8-5/8 inches.
Bering's track from Okhotsk to Bolsheretsk, across Kamchatka, northward
to 67° 18'; also his track eastward from Kamchatka in 1729 and around
the peninsula to Bolsheretsk and Okhotsk; are indicated by dotted
lines. The two latitudes noted in Bering's journal are indicated on
this map by a +, and the northern one is placed near the Asiatic coast
in latitude 118° E. from Tobolsk. At the top of the map the supposed
Paris meridians[6] are indicated, a difference between Paris and
Tobolsk being assumed of 70° degrees, which is about five degrees too
much. There are also sundry infelicities in the transliteration of the
names from the French of D'Anville.
[Footnote 6: In the Campbell map these are taken as east from London
with an allowance of 67° between London and Tobolsk.]
A chart which deserves notice, though almost wholly fictitious, being
chiefly devoted to the spurious discoveries of the alleged Admiral de
Fonte, was issued by J. N. de L'Isle with the concurrence of M. P.
Buache, or at his suggestion. It appeared at Paris, in 1752, and was
copied for Jefferys' (2d) edition of Voyages from Asia to America in
1764. I do not know if this copy appeared in the first edition, but
presume it did.
For present purposes the interesting features of this map are as
follows:
Opposite the eastern extreme of the Chukchi peninsula there is
represented part of America with the legend, "Terres vues par Mr.
Spanberg in 1728, frequentées à présent par les Russes, qui en
apportent de très belles fourrures." In the English edition the legend
is "Seen by Spanberg 1728." Four islands are represented in the strait
between Asia and America, corresponding in a general way to the four
now known to exist there. Connected with America and north of the
Chukchi peninsula is land with an island off it corresponding not badly
to Wrangell and Herald Islands, and marked "Discovered in 1722." It is
possible that this land is a hypothetical compound of the land reported
by the Chukchis east of the strait with that which they knew to be
visible in clear weather from Cape Yakan, more or less confused
accounts of which had long been current among persons interested in
these regions.
The next chart of note in this connection was published by D'Anville,
the royal geographer of France, who had previously prepared the
original map of Bering for publication. He issued a general map of
Asia, in three parts, each of two leaves which could be joined
together, of which the first part appeared in 1751 and the third part
in 1753, entitled:
Troisième Partie de la Carte/d'Asie,/contenant/La Sibérie/et quelques
autres parties/de la Tartarie,/Publiée sous les Auspices de
Monseigneur/Louis-Philippe d'Orléans/Duc d'Orléans/Prémier Prince du
Sang./Par le S^r. d'Anville,/Sécrétaire de Son Alt^s.
Sereniss^s./MDCCLIII./Avec Privilége./
This map is in two sheets (each 20 x 21 inches), the engraving of the
geographical part by Guill. de la Haye and of the ornamental title by
De Lafosse. The longitude is reckoned from Ferro, and the map is
constructed on a scale of 23 French leagues to 60 geographical miles.
The boundaries are colored and the sea shore shaded with short
horizontal lines. It is on the polyconic projection.
This map includes many of the additions to geography in eastern Siberia
which were due to the members of the great Siberian expedition. The
courses and branches of the rivers especially were augmented and
corrected as well as named. The branches of the Anadyr River were
represented and named, but as no new information in regard to the coast
had been received at that date, this river was still mapped as entering
the sea to the south and west of Cape Thaddeus, as erroneously laid
down by Bering, who confounded with the Anadyr a small river which does
come in here, and passed the estuary of the true Anadyr without seeing
it. The coast lines are essentially those of Bering. Beyond the basins
of the Kolyma and Anadyr is marked "Terre inconnue"; a small supplement
in the north-east corner of the map, on half the scale of the map,
represents the north-east extreme of Asia as delineated by Bering. This
little supplement is of considerable interest as it gives fuller
information than that which appears on the original publication of Du
Halde, perhaps from a more modern version of Bering's chart, as
previously suggested.
Several names appear for the first time in cartographic history, upon
this map. Preobrazhenia Bay; Bolshoia River falling into Holy Cross
Bay, and the "Isle de St. Diomide" are among these. The Island of St.
Demetrius is omitted, as well as its name. The Island of St. Diomide is
placed about on a line between East Cape and Cape Chukotski, to the
westward of the meridian of East Cape. There is a discrepancy averaging
about five minutes in latitude and longitude between the positions on
this map and those on the second version of the Bering manuscript
charts. But in the main these differences are, I suspect, merely due to
carelessness in copying, and the general harmony between the two leads
to the belief that the D'Anville outline for this region was based on
the second version of the manuscript.
The differences of position for points on this part of the coast are
numerous. I have noted them in the comparative table of positions
herewith. They may be chiefly owing to slips in transferring from the
Mercator to the Polyconic projection; but some of them are due to new
information, probably derived from the surveyors of the second
expedition. Bering island appears on the map, in about its proper
place, though Copper island is not indicated, nor are any of the
Aleutians shown. I suspect this is the first publication of a
cartographic kind on which Bering island is laid down, as the map of
the Imperial Academy of Sciences, embodying the geographical results of
Bering's Voyage to the coast of America, was not engraved until a year
later, while De L'Isle's of 1752 does not contain them.
The island between Cape Shelaginski and East Cape off the northern
coast, on Bering's map, is omitted by D'Anville. The Kamchatkan
peninsula in latitude 56° is represented to have a width of 180 miles,
while Bering made it 270 miles.
A most important contribution to the subject appeared in Müller's
Historical Collections known as the "Sammlung Russische Geschichte" and
published at St. Petersburg (Kayserl. Academie der Wissenschaften,
1732-64. 8°. Nine volumes.) Des dritten Bandes (erstes, zweytes und
drittes Stück, pp. 1-304, 1758) contains the original account of the
Russian Voyages toward America from which the work of Jefferys has,
with some errors and omissions, been translated. As far as regards
Bering's first voyage, there is only one error of consequence made by
Jefferys, which will be noted in its place. This book is extremely
rare, and the only copy in America which I have been able to find after
much enquiry, is in the library of the Smithsonian Institution.
The first volume of this series has the title
"Eröffnung eines Vorschlages zu Verbesserung der Russischen Historie
Durch den Druck eines Stückweise herauszugebenden Sammelungen von
allerly zu den Umstanden und Begebenheiten dieses Reichs gehorigen
Nachrichten. St. Petersburg, bey der Keyserl. Academie der
Wissenschaften, 1732."
The succeeding volumes have the running title "Sammlung Russische
Geschichte" with the number of the parts subjoined but no other
title-page.
The account of the Russian Voyages is stated by Müller to have been
prepared at the direction of the Empress and endorsed by the Academy of
Sciences. It contains invaluable material on the early explorations,
which, if it had not been for Müller's painstaking researches, would
have been totally lost, as the archives of Yakutsk from whence the data
were derived by Müller were subsequently destroyed by fire. The errors
which occur in it are chiefly due to Müller's endeavor to utilize the
inexact geographical data of the Promyschleniks and Cossacks by
combining them with the less detailed but more precise observations of
later observers. In this attempt he added many valuable details to the
charts, but at the same time introduced several errors. The exaggerated
distances reported by the first explorers who were unable to correct
their estimates by observations of precision, distort those parts of
the map due to their reports. The peninsula of Aliaska becomes hugely
exaggerated as does the Shelagskoi promontory on the Arctic Sea. But no
unprejudiced person can read Müller's account without perceiving his
great caution in accepting unreservedly these imperfect contributions,
the really important additions which he made to cartography, the
preciousness of the facts which he rescued from oblivion, and his
desire to be fair to everybody.
The insinuations of malice and of a desire to injure Bering by means of
this account given by Müller, which Lauridsen attributes to the latter,
appear to be entirely the product of a suspicious temperament and an
excited imagination. Certainly I have seen nothing anywhere cited which
lends to such suspicions any tint of probability. The facts cited in
support of them can easily be otherwise explained, if one desires to
view the subject judicially, and for the most part are not quite
thoroughly understood by the Danish author.
One error upon which the latter lays great stress, is due to a
manipulation of the record, originated or at least adopted by Bering
himself, and which is incorporated in the map and report which all
authors agree proceeded directly from Bering's own hand.
The next map of importance was issued by the Imperial Academy of
Sciences, St. Petersburg in 1754. It was made under the inspection of
Gerhard Friedrich, Staatsrath von Müller, who revised and corrected it
subsequently, when an edition dated 1758 was issued. This map comprised
the geographical results of the great Siberian expedition sent out by
the Russian government; of Bering's voyages; and of the records of the
hunters (Promishleniks) and traders in northeastern Siberia preserved
in the archives of Yakutsk. The sources of this map are fully explained
by Müller in the "Russian Discoveries" (Jefferys' translation, p. 108
et seq.). I have not been able to examine a copy of the original map,
and have therefore relied on the English version of it which is to be
found in Jefferys' translation, second edition, London, 1764.
Among the improvements introduced on this map may be specified, the
correction of the shores of the Okhotsk Sea, and Gulf of Penjina, the
correcter location of the mouth of the Anadyr river and its estuary,
the introduction of the results of the voyages of Gvosdeff, Bering and
Chirikoff to the northwest coast of America, and a multitude of details
relating to northeastern Siberia. The island of St. Deomid (Diomede) is
not represented though its name appears on the 65th parallel in Bering
Strait. The island may have been on the original map and carelessly
omitted by Jefferys' engraver on his copy. Among the errors, or rather
mistaken hypotheses of others, which are suggested in this map by
dotted lines, are the extension westward to 174° E. of Greenwich, of
the peninsula of Aliaska which is also given a wholly uncalled-for
width; and the northward extension of the coast on each side of Bering
Strait. In the former case the cartographer was misled by the errors of
the map of Bering and Chirikoff's last voyage and rumors reported by
other navigators; and in the second case he followed Bering in adopting
an erroneous position and exaggerated form for the coast eastward from
Koliuchin Bay, due to the uncorrected sketches of the Cossacks and
traders. The northern extension of the American coast opposite, was
purely hypothetical and for this Müller must be held responsible. Many
of the western Aleutians are exaggerated in size and erroneous in
position but the chart of Bering's last voyage, and the exaggerated
reports of the hunters who followed him, must be held responsible for
this, in the main.
The work in which this chart appears is largely derived from Müller's
"Sammlung russische geschichte," St. Petersburg, 1758, vol. iii, Parts
I-III (cf. antea). The first edition is entitled, according to
bibliographies:
"Voyages from Asia to America for completing the discoveries of the
northwest coast of America. A summary of voyages made by the Russians
on the frozen sea. From the high Dutch of S[taatsrath]. Muller by T.
Jefferys. London: T. Jefferys, 1761." lxvi, 76 pp. 4°, with four maps.
The second edition which is that referred to in this paper is entitled
"Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the
northwest coast of America. To which is prefixed, a summary of the
Voyages made by the Russians on the Frozen Sea, in search of a
northeast passage. Serving as an explanation of a map of the Russian
discoveries, published by the Academy of Sciences at Petersburgh,
[etc.] London: T. Jefferys, 1764," viii, 120 pp. 4°, four maps.
A French translation by Dumas, with the author's initials misprinted G.
P. instead of G. F., was printed at Amsterdam in 1766. It consisted of
two volumes, 18mo, with a map. A Danish translation, by Morten
Hallager, was issued at Copenhagen in 1784, as a portion of a volume
relating to northern explorations. Bibliographers seem to have been
puzzled by the discrepancy of initials, not recognizing that the S. in
Jefferys' volume stood for a title and not a name. Another work
important in its collection of facts bearing upon the general question
of the explorations eastward by the Russians, was published by the
archdeacon of Wilts, Rev. William Coxe in 1780. This was followed by a
second edition during the same year. A third edition accompanied by a
Supplement of 57 pages was printed in 1787 and a fourth in 1803. There
were two apparently distinct translations of the book printed at Paris
in 1781, and a German edition at Frankfurt and Leipzig in 1783. The
third edition which is the best and most correct appeared both in
octavo and quarto form, and is that to which reference is made in this
paper. It is entitled:
"Account of the Russian discoveries between Asia and America. To which
are added the Conquest of Siberia, and the history of the transactions
and commerce between Russia and China, [etc.]. London: T. Cadell,
1787."
410 pp. 8° [or 4°] with four charts and one plate; to which is added,
consecutively paged:
"A comparative view of the Russian discoveries with those made by
Captains Cook and Clerke, and a sketch of what remains to be
ascertained by future navigators. London: T. Cadell, 1787." 3 l. unp.,
417-456 pp. 8°.
The latter was also separately issued. Among the maps contained in this
work of Coxe's are a reduced copy of the general map of Russia issued
by the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1776, and a chart
of Synd's Voyage toward Chukotski Noss.
The latter is the only chart of Synd's voyage (1764-1768) which is
accessible, and it is vouched for as authentic by Dr. Coxe. Compared
with later charts it is, of course, extremely imperfect yet there is in
it enough resemblance to the truth to enable us to recognize what was
intended in many instances. In the northeastern part of the chart, the
latitudes are exaggerated and the longitudes contracted in a very
erroneous manner. Nevertheless we recognize East Cape, here named
"Prom. Tschukotskoi;" the two islands now called the Diomedes but here
left nameless; a large island, moved eastward out of place, but
doubtless intended for Arakam Island, is called "I. Diomedis;" while
among a crowd of islets (referable to the hills of St. Lawrence Island
seen through a fog and laid down very inaccurately), the name "S.
Diomedis" appears again. The American coast was seen and landed upon;
Cape Prince of Wales and the shore south and east from it are
recognizable. The island of St. Mathew was discovered and named, though
placed a degree too far south. The island of St. Paul in the Pribiloff
group was discovered by Synd, put in its true latitude, and named
Preobrazhenia or Transfiguration Island. It is about seven degrees out
in relative longitude and fourteen in absolute longitude. One cannot
doubt however that it was the island now known as St. Paul when we
recall the fact that there are no other islands than the Pribiloff
group, in that latitude or within that general area of Bering Sea. The
southern Cape of the Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotski Cape of Bering and
Müller is represented two degrees too far south. Preobrazhenia Bay is
not recognizable but the name is transferred to the bight west and
north of Cape Bering of our present charts. This part of the coast was
not however approached by Synd, who spent much time on the coast of
Kamchatka. On his chart this peninsula is represented better than we
should have expected from the rudeness of the rest.
The map of the Academy shows the influence of those who discredited the
near approach of America to eastern Siberia; notwithstanding the
explorations of Deshneff, Gvosdeff and Synd, the American shore of
Bering Strait has disappeared altogether. The eastern portion of the
Chukchi Peninsula is indented by a host of hypothetical inlets, and
defended by an unrecognizable archipelago of nameless islands. The
far-stretching chain of islands, among which Bering's second expedition
was so long entangled, excepting those confirmed by Krenitzen and
Levasheff (who sailed far north of the southern arc of the chain) is
also absent. Excepting that the fictitious peninsula north from Chukchi
land is effaced, the map in its main features for this region is less
accurate than that of Bering, and does not compare very favorably with
that of Müller. And yet but shortly after its publication, the
explorations of Cook and Clerke recorded the facts which should, when
published, exalt the memory of the older geographers and scatter the
hypotheses which for a time prevailed against them.
Their explorations are included in
"A voyage to the Pacific Ocean, undertaken by the command of his
Majesty, for making discoveries in the northern hemisphere, [etc.],
performed under the direction of captains Cook, Clerke and Gore, in his
Majesty's ships the Resolution and Discovery, in the years 1776-1780.
London, for T. Nicol and T. Cadell, 1784-5." 3 volumes 4° and atlas
folio.
This is the edition ordered by the Admiralty. Of this celebrated work,
said to have been written from the explorers' manuscripts by Bishop
Douglas, there have been many editions. In the Bulletin of the Société
de Géographie, Paris, 1879, pp. 481-540, is a bibliography by James
Jackson.
The most interesting points in regard to Cook's explorations about
Bering Strait are comprised on the chart (vol. ii, p. 467) entitled:
"Chart of Norton Sound and of Bherings Strait made by the East Cape of
Asia and the west point of America."
On this chart the main features of the coast on either side of the
strait are correctly indicated, though several of the inlets and bays
are wanting. The Diomedes and Fairway Rock of modern charts are located
but left without names, King's Island is named; Arakam was not
recognized as an island nor was Point Chaplin (Indian Point) observed.
St. Lawrence Island was seen in foggy weather. Its isolated hills
connected by very low flat land led Cook into the error of supposing
that it comprised several islands, one of which he correctly referred
to that named St. Lawrence by Bering and the rest he lumped under the
name of Clerke's Islands. A single fictitious island, midway between
St. Lawrence and King's appears on the chart, but is not named or
mentioned in the text. St. Lawrence Bay is named and discovered. Bering
and Müller's Chukotski cape is correctly identified. East Cape is well
delineated, and the name Serdze Kamen (Heart-Rock) originally given to
a cliff or bluff point at the entrance of Holy Cross Bay is transferred
to a point on the Arctic shore of the peninsula. There is a confused
and somewhat curious history connected with the use of the names
Serdze-Kamen and Chukotski Cape. After the travels of Deshneff, Popoff
and others and the reception at various times of information from the
natives, it was pretty generally understood among the hunters and
traders of this region that the extreme of Asia was a cape or point on
or near which the Chukchi dwelt, or which they described, which was not
definitely located, and which was vaguely known as the Chukchi Cape or
the Cape of the Chukchis, Chukotski Noss in the Russian tongue. Cape
Serdze Kamen will be found on the chart of Billings' Voyage. It was the
point where the Chukchis successfully defended themselves against the
invading Russians who sought to force them to pay tribute. Beyond it,
for the Russians all was mysterious Chukchi country with an unknown
coast. This cape being their _ne plus ultra_ it is probable that it was
more or less confounded by these illiterate and ignorant hunters with
the supposed eastern Cape of Asia, otherwise the Cape of the Chukchis
as used by Müller. Admit this and it is not difficult to frame an
hypothesis which shall account for the confusion, without recourse to
the absurd charges with which Lauridsen attempts to soil the reputation
of Müller, Steller and others.
When Bering named a cape near which he met a baidar-load of Chukchi who
gave him some geographical information (among other things that the
coast made a turn after passing it) he called this cape with great
propriety the Cape of the Chukchis, as observed by Cook (ii, p. 474)
and with no reference to the legendary Cape of the Chukchis above
referred to.
But when Müller and others more familiar with the records of the
earlier explorers came to make maps, they naturally applied the
legendary name to the cape which they supposed to be the eastern end of
Asia, and beyond which the coast makes a turn to the west. Müller
believing in a great cape or peninsula on the northern coast of the
Chukchi country supposed this to be the true Cape Chukotski, and to the
eastern Cape of Bering he left the name of Serdze-Kamen, probably
knowing little about the original Cape Serdze. And as Bering, by the
ambiguity of his journal, gave color to the idea that he had rounded
East Cape and pursued the north coast west of it for a few hours before
turning homeward, what more natural than that those little acquainted
with the region should speak of his turning back from near
Serdze-Kamen? Thus Cook, following out the same idea derived from his
study of the map and journal in Harris, transferred the name to a point
in the latitude at which Bering turned back, on the coast which he
supposed him to have surveyed. There is plenty of confusion here but no
just ground for supposing malice in it.
A publication which throws much light upon Bering's voyage of 1728 was
printed by Vasili Nikolaievich Bergh (or Berkh) a well known writer on
geographical matters in connection with Russian history. It is in the
Russian language and the title may be translated as follows:
First Sea Voyages of the Russians undertaken for the settlement of this
geographical problem--Are Asia and America united?--and performed in
1727, 28 and 29, under the command of fleet captain of the first rank,
Vitus Bering. To which is added a short biographical account of Captain
Bering and some of his officers. St. Petersburg, Academical printing
office, 1823. 8°. 3 pr. l. iv, 126 pp. 1 map. Russian text.
This book was printed, as many private books are, at the printing
office of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, but was not published or
printed by the Academy. The only copies I know of are those in the
library of the Academy and one in the British Museum library, neither
of which I have been able personally to consult. But through the kind
offices of Dr. S. Hertzenstein, of the Zoological Museum of the
Academy, I learn that Bergh found in the Archives of the State
Admiralty Department the logbook of midshipman Peter Chaplin entitled,
"Midshipman Peter Chaplin's journal of the Kamchatka expedition of
1725-1731." From this MSS and from the notes of G. F. Müller and
Admiral Nagaieff, Bergh compiled his work. Chaplin's journal is not
reprinted verbatim but only paraphrased by Bergh who adds his own
commentary on the subject matter, and occasionally gives extracts from
Chaplin whose logbook seems to have been kept in a model way.
An effort will be made to obtain a copy of the original logbook,[7] but
for the present we are obliged to be content with what of authenticity
remains to the data which have been translated or paraphrased by Bergh,
Lauridsen and Olson, necessarily submitting to more or less
modification in the process.
[Footnote 7: Simultaneously with the proofs of this paper the work of
Bergh has been communicated to me through the liberality of the
University of Upsala, Sweden. The results of a critical examination of
it will form the subject of a later paper as the present publication
cannot be delayed.]
The most authentic and important document for the history of this
voyage is naturally the official report handed in by Bering himself and
printed in the Journal of the Military Topographical Depot of the
Russian Army, volume x, pp. 67-79, St. Petersburg, 1847.
This journal is a quarto and the report is printed _verbatim et
literatim_ if one may judge by the archaic and mispelled words with
which it is adorned. It comprises Bering's report including his
instructions, a table of geographical positions, and a painfully
detailed table of routes and distances by which his position in
Kamchatka was computed. This report has never been translated in full
and unmodified, the original is thought to have been lost. The present
publication is not referred to by Lauridsen and was apparently unknown
to him. I have therefore thought it worth while to prepare an English
version of the report and geographical table which are incorporated in
this paper.
The result shows that the previous versions of the report which have
appeared were more or less mutilated or colored by the editors printing
them, probably with the view of making the report of more popular
interest to their readers but with injurious results to its historic
value for reference.
We now come to the latest contributions to the subject. If it were not
for the deficiencies in them, which seem to me serious, this paper
would not have been prepared, but it seemed to be a pity that the
sources of information in regard to Bering, accessible to those who do
not read Russian should not be both more impartial and more accurate.
Vitus J. Bering og de Russiske opdagelsesrejser fra 1725-43. Af P.
Lauridsen. Udgivet med understöttelse af den Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske
stiftelse. Kjöbenhavn. Gyldendalske Boghandels forlag (F. Hegel & Sön).
Fr. Bagges bogtrykkeri, 1885. Small 4°, six prel. l. 211 pp., 4 sheets
of charts, one plate, one wood-cut.
This work is an attempt at a life of Bering which should combine an
account of his career with a reversal of the generally received opinion
in regard to his indecision of character. It embodies a general polemic
against those who at different times have criticised the explorer. It
contains a paraphrase of some portions of Bergh's work which had not
previously been accessible in any language except the Russian, yet
which would have been much more valuable in the shape of exact
translation and quotation. The author labored under the disadvantages
of not understanding the language in which all the original records
both printed and in manuscript are written; of having little or no
familiarity with nautical surveying or cartography; and of being
apparently unacquainted with the best modern charts of the region. His
criticisms of others are couched in very heated and not altogether
parliamentary language, and he is the victim of a narrow spirit of
nationalism which is sometimes mistaken for patriotism. Nevertheless he
has brought together a great deal of information; it is evident, in
spite of his violent criticisms, that he has not intended to be unfair,
since he puts on record in several instances evidence damaging to his
own views which would not otherwise have come to light; and he has
certainly exhibited Bering's valuable qualities in a manner which will
do much towards rehabilitating his reputation.[8]
[Footnote 8: I may take opportunity in this place of replying to
certain criticisms of Mr. Lauridsen on the chronological chapter of my
work on Alaska and its Resources published in 1870.
That chapter was and was stated in its introductory paragraph to be a
compilation from the authorities on the subject. It contained no
original matter except that relating to explorations subsequent to
1865.
For Bering's two voyages I consulted the report on the Russian
Discoveries printed by order of the Empress and under the auspices of
the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, prepared by the
distinguished geographer Müller, himself a member of the second
expedition and personally acquainted with the actors in those scenes.
No more authoritative printed document exists on the subject. The
supposed errors animadverted upon by Mr. Lauridsen are either taken
directly from Müller, or are inferences drawn from his report. Some of
them the critic has misunderstood or misconstrued, which from the
necessarily extreme condensation of my table is particularly easy. The
expression of surprise that Bering passed through Bering Strait without
seeing the Diomedes, was warranted by the fact that Bering nowhere
mentions their name or speaks of seeing any islands in their location,
nor are they on his earliest printed charts. This point, however, will
be more fully dealt with later. If I were to re-write that chapter I
should probably modify the criticisms of Bering's character which
appear in it; but at the time it was written I was fresh from four
years' exploration in the same region, and was particularly impressed
with his failure to secure better results when to do so would have been
so easy, as well as directly in the line of his duty.]
Review: Bulletin of the American Geographical Society for 1885. New
York, the Society, 1885. pp. 285-298.
This review forms part of a "Reply to criticisms upon the voyage of the
Vega around Asia and Europe," by Baron A. E. von Nordenskiold,
translated from the Swedish by Vere A. Elfwing. It is addressed only
toward certain points in Lauridsen's work, and contains valuable
corrections of certain errors therein, and information in regard to the
work of Strahlenberg and the other early cartographers of Eastern
Siberia. It is a translation of a paper published in _Ymer_ for 1885,
to which for exact accuracy reference should be made.
Russian explorations, 1725-1743. Vitus Bering: the discoverer of Bering
Strait. By Peter Lauridsen (etc.). Revised by the author and translated
from the Danish by Julius E. Olson (etc.). Chicago, S. C. Griggs &
Company, 1889. 8° xvi, 223 pp., 2 cuts, 2 folding sheets of maps.
This edition is a good deal condensed, especially in the matter of
references, and does not have all the illustrations of the original.
There are also a good many slips or typographical errors, which affect
its value as a work of reference. Some of those important in connection
with the present paper are as follows: page 31, line 4, "60° 50' N."
latitude should be "62° 50'." On the last line of the same page
"longitude" should be "latitude." Page 32, after "cloudy weather" in
the second line from the bottom, the whole remaining record of August
15th is omitted altogether. The sentence beginning "From noon" relates
to August 16th, nautical reckoning. Page 33, line 5, "30° 19' east"
should be "30° 17' east;" line 20 after "half west" should be inserted
"south by east, by compass." Page 51, line 4 from bottom, "latitude"
should be "longitude."
Review: Nation (The) New York, vol. xlix, No. 1275, p. 454. Dec. 5,
1889.
I may add that a number of references to Russian articles treating of
Bering will be found in my Bibliography of charts and publications
relating to Alaska and adjacent region, published by the U. S. Coast
Survey in 1879.
REPORT OF FLEET-CAPTAIN BERING ON HIS EXPEDITION TO THE EASTERN COAST
OF SIBERIA.
To the most Serene Sovereign, the high and powerful, the Empress of all
the Russias:
A short relation of the Siberian Expedition upon which was sent
Of your Imperial Majesty the most humble servant and fleet-captain,
W. I. BERING.
On February 5 of the late year 1725 I received from her Imperial
Majesty the Empress Ekaterina Alexievna, of happy and well-deserving
memory, the autographic instructions of his Imperial Majesty Peter the
Great, of happy and well-deserving memory, a copy of which is hereunto
affixed.
_Instructions._
(1.) There should be built on the Kamchatka [River], or at some other
place adjacent, one or two boats with decks.
(2.) With these boats [you are directed] to sail along the coast which
extends northwards and which is supposed (since no one knows the end of
it) to be continuous with America.
(3.) And therefore [you are directed] to seek the point where it
connects with America and to go to some settlement under European rule,
or if any European vessel is seen, learn of it what the coast visited
is called, which should be taken down in writing, an authentic account
prepared, placed on the chart and brought back here.
* * * * *
The following were the instructions given me by the former General
Admiral Count Apraxin, in which were written: "Artisans, laborers and
whatever, in my opinion, is necessary for the expedition, are to be
demanded from the chancellor's office of the government of Tobolsk and
monthly reports sent to the Imperial Admiralty College."
Before receiving these instructions, January 24, a lieutenant and 26
men of my command had been ordered to service on the expedition by the
Admiralty College with the necessary equipment for 25 wagons. The whole
number of my command sent out amounted to 33 men who were ordered to
Vologdie and from St. Petersburg to Tobolsk by a route which passed
through the towns here named: through Vologdie, Totma, Upper Ustiuk,
Solwichergodsk, Kaigorodok, Solkamsk, Verkhoturia, Turinsk, Epanchin
and Tiumen.
On the 16th day of March we arrived at Tobolsk and were there until the
15th day of May because of the lateness of the season interfering with
travel. During the delay at Tobolsk requisitions were made for the
necessary outfit for the expedition.
May 15th we left Tobolsk by water down the Irtish to Samarovska Yama,
on four boats of the kind called by the Siberians "dostcheniki," on
which were loaded all the outfit brought from St. Petersburg or
obtained at Tobolsk; together with a chaplain, commissary, sub-officers
and thirty-four soldiers.
I had previously sent a garde-marine officer, on a small boat furnished
by the Tobolsk authorities in obedience to the orders of the Naval
College, to the proper settlements where the preparation of
freight-boats had been ordered on the Yenisei and Uskut rivers, and I
ordered him to sail to Yakutsk.
From Samarovska Yama the Obi river was ascended to Surgut and to Narim,
and thence the Ket river to Makovska post. From Tobolsk to Makovska as
we traveled live Ostiaks who were formerly idolaters, but, since the
year 1715, through the labors of the Metropolitan of Tobolsk they have
been converted to the true faith. From Makovska post to Yeniseisk the
route lay overland. From Yeniseisk to the Ilima-mouth we proceeded also
in four boats by way of the Yenisei and Tunguska rivers. On the
Tunguska there are three rapids and several shoals; rapids be it
understood where across the whole width of the river large rocks stand
high in the water, with a passage only in one or two places; and
shoals, similarly under water and above water but composed of small
stones, alternate with rapids and with places where the water in the
river is shallow for the distance of one or two versts, and which are
not surmounted without a great deal of labor. From Yeniseisk in
pursuance of orders from Tobolsk we took thirty men, carpenters and
smiths.
On the Ilima river, on account of rapids, bars and shoal water, the
barges could not be taken to Ilimsk. For a certain distance only small
canoes were available, for which reason the heaviest part of the outfit
was reserved to be sent by sledges in winter.
Lieut. Spanberg, with a party of thirty-nine carpenters and laborers,
went by land from Ilimsk by the Uskut to the river Lena, to prepare
during the winter fifteen barges on which the command and its equipment
should be floated down to Yakutsk. I remained with the rest of the
party near Ilimsk just below the Uskut, because at Ilimsk there are few
houses and on account of the difficulties involved in a winter journey
to Yakutsk, from the deficiencies of transportation, the deep snow and
the severe cold, which prevented us from proceeding.
To these reasons [was added] the necessity, according to the orders
from the authorities at Tobolsk, of drawing the provisions for the
expedition from Irkutsk and from Ilimsk down to Yakutsk because at the
latter place grain is not cultivated. During our wintering at Ilimsk I
made a sledge journey to Irkutsk to advise with the local Voivod who
had previously been Voivod at Yakutsk and who understood what would be
needed by us in transporting our outfit from Yakutsk to Okhotsk and
Kamchatka, since I did not possess any actual information in regard to
that region. During the last days of winter travel I went over to the
Uskut and obtained from Irkutsk twenty additional carpenters and smiths
for the work of the expedition and two coopers from Ilimsk.
On the Tunguska, Ilima and Lena rivers to the Vitim live the so-called
Tunguses, people who own reindeer which they use as draught animals,
while those who do not own deer live near the rivers on fish and travel
in canoes made of birch bark. These people are idolaters.
From Uskutsk on fifteen barges, in the spring of 1726, we descended the
Lena to Yakutsk. From the river Vitim down to the Lena, on both banks
live Yakuts with a smaller proportion of Tunguses. The Yakuts possess
herds of cattle, plenty of horses and cows by which they subsist, and
are contented with the product of their herds, depending but little on
fish except where their cattle are too few. They pay an idolatrous
reverence to the sun and moon as well as to birds, such as the swan,
eagle and crow. They also hold in great honor their own fortunetellers,
known hereabouts as _shamani_, each of whom owns small idols or figures
which they call _shaitan_. By their own account these people are of
Tartar origin.
On reaching Yakutsk in boats I required the aid of all the people of my
command. Thirteen flat-bottomed barges which had been constructed at
Uskutsk, under Lieut. Spanberg, proceeded by water on the Lena down to
the Aldan to ascend that river, the Maya and the upper Yudoma. Such a
cargo could hardly have been transported to that distance overland on
horseback where but little in the way of subsistence was obtainable
from land or water. The Cross of Yudoma might only be reached with
great difficulty, but if successful the expense would be less than if
the material had been carried on the backs of horses. I myself with a
few people crossed from Yakutsk to Okhotsk with pack horses, as is the
general custom. The load or pack taken is only about five puds to one
horse, less than by the telega [ordinary cart], the deep mire and high
mountains to be traversed not permitting more, though my supplies
amounted to 1600 puds. At the post called Okhotsk is a Russian village
of only ten houses, and Lieut. Chirikoff was left to winter at Yakutsk
with orders to come overland to the Okhotsk post in the spring.
In the last days of December, 1726, a message asking for assistance was
received from Lieut. Spanberg, who had been dispatched by the river,
saying that the boats had failed to get within 450 versts of Yudoma
Cross and were frozen in on the Gorbeh River, where he was transporting
by sledges a cargo of outfit indispensable to our party. I sent at
once, from among those who were wintering with me at the post of
Okhotsk, a party with dogs and supplies and brought in the Lieutenant
to the post on the first day of January, 1727, but without any of the
outfit, he having left the Gorbeh river November 4th, 1726. His command
had been obliged by hunger to eat the flesh of their horses and even
the rawhide harness, the skin of their fur clothing and the untanned
uppers of their shoes. Their cargo was all left at four different
places along the route, which lay through uninhabited country. The only
addition to their means which they had been able to secure, was some of
our own flour, to the amount of 150 puds, which on my overland journey
I had been obliged to leave near Yudoma Cross on account of the death
of some of my pack-horses.
Along the rivers Aldan and Maia live Yakuts of the same stock as those
of the Lena and Yudoma rivers. But near and around the post of Okhotsk
wander the seaside Tunguses and some Lamuts with their herds and many
reindeer, who travel about winter and summer where their deer can find
pasturage; and some pedestrian Tunguses who live near the sea and
rivers and are professional fishermen as among the Yakuts.
February 1, ninety men with some dogs and sledges were collected and
sent under Lieut. Spanberg to bring in the outfit left behind by the
Yudoma river, and by the 1st of April about half of it had been
transported safely to Okhotsk. Since more remained I sent twenty-seven
men to Yudoma Cross to bring over the rest of the material on
pack-horses from that place, who returned in May.
In this region in winter time from Yakutsk to Okhotsk and other distant
places people always travel on foot in parties of eight or ten, hauling
their own sledges after them. Those belonging to our command, when sent
from Gorbeh to Okhotsk, brought down ten or fifteen puds or more, the
snow being seven feet deep in places and travelers in winter being
obliged to dig out a camp every evening, down to the ground to keep
warm.
June 30, Lieut. Spanberg in his newly built vessel sailed across the
sea to the port of Bolsheretsk with a cargo of outfit and supplies and
the material for the shipbuilders and workmen of our command, sent to
Kamchatka to get out the timbers for a vessel, being ordered to return
again for us.
July 3d, Lieut. Chirikoff arrived from Yakutsk with 2300 puds of flour,
according to my instructions.
August 21, we loaded the new vessel which had returned from the land of
Kamchatka, and another old boat which had been at Bolsheretsk, with the
flour, and the whole command then at Okhotsk proceeded across the sea
to Bolsheretsk. The officer who had been left to guard the provisions
which had not arrived from the wintering place on the Gorbeh river was
directed to float them down again and take a receipt from the
authorities at Yakutsk and endeavor, the following year, to deliver to
the command in Kamchatka some part of the provisions, iron and tar.
It was necessary to take the supplies from the mouth of the [Bolshoia]
river to the post of Bolsheretsk by water in small boats. At the post
were fifteen houses inhabited by Russians. For the ascent of the
shallow river small boats had been built as I desired that the outfit
and the most necessary part of the provisions should be transported to
the upper Kamchatka post, a distance of 120 versts by water. The
transportation between Bolsheretsk and Upper and Lower Kamchatka in
winter was entirely carried on by the use of the native dogs. Every
evening it is necessary to dig out the camp in the snow, in order to
get shelter from whirlwinds of snow which in this region are called
_poorga_. If one makes camp in an open place free from snow, these snow
squalls are liable to overwhelm the party and they may perish.
At Upper Kamchatka there are seventeen and at Lower Kamchatka fifty
houses, at another place [Middle Kamchatka] where there is a church are
fifteen houses, and in all these settlements there are not over 150
Russian subjects, who live by the collection of the _yassak_ [tribute
money], beside those who were brought to the country on our expedition.
In coming over to Bolsheretsk we brought 300 puds of whale blubber
obtained from a whale cast up by the sea, which served us as money,
together with the Circassian tobacco which is here commonly so used.
In the southern part of Kamchatka live Kuriles, in the northern part
Kamchadales, whose language is peculiarly their own with but few
introduced words. Of these people some are idolaters, others believe in
nothing and are strangers to all honesty. The Russians who live in
Kamchatka and the indigenes grow no grain and have no domestic animals
except draught dogs. They dress and subsist upon what they can get,
principally fish, roots and berries, in summer time wild fowl and large
marine animals. At present in the wilderness of Yakutsk, the convent,
which is of the same age as the Kamchatka churches, cultivates barley,
hemp and turnips. Here only turnips are grown by the people of the
three settlements, but they grow very large, in Russia they are
smaller, here there may be four turnips to a pud. I brought with me on
my journey some rye which was sowed around the establishments near us,
but whether it ripened or not I did not ascertain. The frost strikes
early into the ground in this region and the absence of cattle renders
it difficult for the people to plow.
The natives described and from whom the yassak [tribute] is collected,
belong to the Russian Empire and are all savages. They are known for
their dirt and bad passions. If a woman or any animal brings forth
twins then one of them is smothered, the hour it is born, and it is
regarded as a great fault if one does not smother one of the two.
The Kamchadales are very superstitious. If there is any one who is very
ill, even a father or mother, or near the point of death, they will
carry them out into the woods and leave them without nourishment for a
week together whether it be winter or summer, from which treatment many
die. The dead are not covered with earth but are dragged out and left
to be eaten by dogs. The house of a man who has died is abandoned.
Among the Kariak people it is the custom to burn the body, although
this is forbidden.
By the time of our arrival at the Lower Kamchatka post the ship-timber
for our vessel was in large part prepared, and upon the 4th of April,
1728, was put upon the stocks for the vessel, which, with God's help,
was finished by the 10th of July, the timber being hauled by dogs. Tar
was made from the native tree which is called _Listvennik_ [spruce],
since the tar which we should have brought with us had not arrived.
Before this it was not known here that tar could be obtained from the
native trees. So also for the sea voyage, the deficiency of spirit made
from grain was supplied by a liquor distilled from herbs, and salt was
made by boiling sea water. To increase our store of sea provisions, in
place of cow's butter, fat was tried out from fish, in place of meat
fish was salted. The vessel was provisioned with everything needful for
forty men for a year. On the 14th day of July we went out of the mouth
of the Kamchatka river into the sea, in obedience to the autographic
orders given me by his Imperial Majesty Peter the Great, as the map
constructed for that purpose will show.
August 8th, having arrived in north latitude 64° 30', eight men rowed
to us from the shore in a skin-boat, enquiring from whence we came and
what was our business there. They said they were Chukchi, (whom the
Russians of these parts have long known) and as we lay to they were
urged to come to the vessel. They inflated some floats made of sealskin
and sent one man swimming to us to talk, then the boat came up to the
vessel and they told us that on the coast lived many of their nation;
that the land not far from there takes a decided turn to the westward,
and they also said that at no great distance from where we were, we
should see an island. This proved true, but we saw nothing valuable
upon it except huts. This island in honor of the day we named St.
Lawrence, but we were not able to see any people upon it, though an
officer was sent in a boat from the vessel on two occasions to look for
inhabitants.
On the 15th of August we arrived in the latitude of 67° 18' and I
judged that we had clearly and fully carried out the instructions given
by his Imperial Majesty of glorious and ever deserving memory, because
the land no longer extended to the north. Neither from the Chukchi
coast nor to the eastward could any extension of the land be observed.
If we should continue on our course and happen to have contrary winds
we could not get back to Kamchatka before the close of navigation and
might be obliged to winter in that region, not only without a harbor,
but where no fuel could anywhere be obtained, where the native people
do not acknowledge the authority of the Russian government, but are
wholly independent and united against us in refusing to pay tribute.
From the mouth of the Kamchatka river and all the way to this place
along the seacoast wind elevated mountains, resembling a wall in
steepness, and from which the snow does not disappear in summer.
On the 20th of August four canoes were observed rowing toward us,
containing about forty people who were Chukchi of the same sort as
those whom we had met before. They brought for sale meat, fresh water,
fish, fox skins, of which fifteen were of the white fox, and four
walrus teeth, which my people bought of them for needles and
flint-and-steels. They said that some among them had been overland with
reindeer to the Kolyma river and that they never went by sea to the
Kolyma; but, at a great distance, by the seashore lived some of our
people, born Russians, people whom they had known for a long time, and
one of them said that he had been at the Anadyr post to trade. To other
questions they gave the same answers as the Chukchi previously seen.
On the 2d of September we entered the mouth of the Kamchatka river and
wintered at the post of Lower Kamchatka.
On the 5th of June, 1729, having repaired the vessel which had been
laid up, we went out of the mouth of the Kamchatka river and put to sea
to the eastward, because the inhabitants of Kamchatka declared that on
fine days land could be seen across the sea. Though none of our own
people had observed it, we went out to determine the authenticity of
the information. We sailed nearly 200 versts and saw not the slightest
trace of land. We sailed around the south point of Kamchatka to the
mouth of the Bolshoia river, making a chart of this part which had not
previously been delineated. From the mouth of the Bolshoia river we
sailed across the sea to the post of Okhotsk having left at Lower
Kamchatka and at Bolsheretsk, out of the supplies received by us from
the authorities of Yakutsk, flour, meal and dry salt meat to the amount
of 800 puds.
On the 23d of July the vessel reached the mouth of the Okhotsk river,
where the outfit and supplies of the expedition were turned over to the
governor and I, with my command, on hired horses, crossed over to
Yudoma Cross and thence in canoes down the Aldan river, crossing over
at Belskoi and below, and carrying everything on pack horses over to
Yakutsk.
The whole journey occupied the time from Okhotsk, July 29th, to Yakutsk
on the 29th of August. We remained in Yakutsk until September 3d, and
from September 10th until October 1st traveled in two barges on the
Lena when we were arrested by ice at the settlement of Peleduie. Here
we were detained until the 29th of October, by the absence of snow and
the presence of small ice in the Lena. When the ice solidified we
proceeded to Ilimsk and from Ilimsk to Yeniseisk on the Tunguska river,
stopping at Russian settlements; and from Yeniseisk to Tomsk with
Russians and converted Tartars; from Tomsk to Chausk Ostrog, Russian
settlements; from Chausk to Tari by the Barabinskoi steppe; from Tari
to Tobolsk by the Irtish river among the Tartars; arriving at Tobolsk
January 10, 1730. From Tobolsk for St. Petersburg we left on the 25th
of the same month, following the same route by which we originally
reached Tobolsk from the capital. We arrived in St. Petersburg March 1,
1730.
* * * * *
_Note._--The extensive tabular itinerary covering two quarto pages,
showing the details of the route traversed in going to Kamchatka, the
distances and directions from point to point (except during the sea
voyages), the native tribes in the region traversed, etc.--is not
reproduced, as it contains no information of importance in the present
connection. The other table, showing the astronomical position
estimated for the more important places is herewith transcribed.
To get the approximate Greenwich longitude 67° should be added to the
longitudes in the table which are reckoned from Tobolsk.
I have provided a tabular itinerary, which shows the dates of the
events of the expedition, derived from Bering's Report and from other
sources, which are indicated by letters. B stands for Brookes' edition
of Du Halde; H for Campbell's version in Harris; M for Müller's
account; and L for Lauridsen. The astronomical events are taken from
Oppolzer's standard catalogue of solar and lunar eclipses.
It will be noted in the following tables there are a few discrepancies
of single days compared with Lauridsen's account or other authorities.
These I take to be due to the use in the ship's journal of the nautical
day in which the nautical second day of the month begins on the first
calendar day at noon and ends at noon on the second calendar day, so
that events occurring during the first twelve hours of the nautical day
would have a date one day later than the true calendar date.
_Catalogue of the towns and notable Siberian places put on the chart
through which the route passes, with their latitude and longitude, the
latter computed from Tobolsk._
--------------------------------------+-------------+------------
Cities and Places. | Latitude N. | Long. E. of
| | Tobolsk.
--------------------------------------+-------------+------------
Tobolsk | 58° 05' | 00° 00'
Samarofska Yama | 60 17 | 00 30
Town of Surgut | 60 51 | 5 18
Town of Narim | 58 48 | 14 35
Ketskoi post | 58 19 | -- --[9]
Losinoborski convent | 58 17 | -- --[9]
Makoffska post | 58 03 | 23 13
Yeniseisk | 58 20 | 25 12
Kashim convent | 58 37 | 32 00
House of Simakhina, Ilima river mouth | 57 25 | 35 16
Ilimsk | 56 40 | 36 44
Ust Kutskoi post | 56 40 | 38 26
Kirinski post | 57 50 | 41 01
Yakutsk | 62 08 | 57 53
Okhotsk post | 59 13 | 76 07
Mouth of Bolshoia river, Kamchatka | 52 42 | 89 51
Upper Kamchatka post | 54 48 | -- --[9]
Lower Kamchatka post | 56 11 | -- --[9]
Mouth of Kamchatka river | 56 03 | 96 10
Cape St. Thaddeus | 62 20 | 111 32
West cape, Holy Cross bay | 65 35 | 115 15
East cape, Holy Cross bay | 65 28 | 115 37
Preobrazhenia bay | 65 01 | 120 30
Chukotski cape, east end | 64 25 | 122 55
St. Lawrence island | 64 00 | 122 55
St. Diomede island | 66 00 | 125 42
Place from which we turned back | 67 18 | 126 07
South cape of Kamchatka | 51 10 | 89 51
--------------------------------------+-------------+------------
[Footnote 9: These longitudes absent from Bering's own report are
supplied by Campbell in his list, probably from the chart.]
In the Table of positions the addition of 67° will reduce the
longitudes to E. of Greenwich. It is probably from this table that Dr.
Campbell derived his list, in Harris, which is, barring some additions,
errors, and mistranslations, much the same. As Bering does not give any
longitude for Lower Kamchatka post it is highly improbable that he
observed it at that place, by means of a lunar eclipse or otherwise.
Chirikoff's observation of a lunar eclipse at Ilimsk made that point
30° 13' east longitude from Tobolsk or, approximately, 97° 13' east
from Greenwich. His pedometric observations placed Ilimsk in 103° 44'
E. Gr. On recent charts Ilimsk is in about 104° E. Gr., so that the
eclipse observation was in error about 6½ degrees. The meridian used on
the voyage of 1728 was that of Lower Kamchatka, based on pedometric
observations from Ilimsk computed by means of a traverse table. These,
according to Chirikoff's journal, gave for the Lower Kamchatka post a
meridian of 126° 01' 49" east from St. Petersburg or about 156° 02'
east from Greenwich, which is in error about six and a quarter degrees.
Discarding the eclipse observation and using only the pedometric
observations from Tobolsk to Lower Kamchatka the result for that place
is 162° 33' E. Gr., which is very near the truth. I have no doubt that
this result is what was finally used in the chart (though not in the
original report) and, therefore, that all the observations of Lauridsen
and others in regard to the alleged eclipse in Kamchatka are based on a
misunderstanding and without value.
ITINERARY FOR BERING'S FIRST EXPEDITION.
_Dates corrected to ordinary calendar, beginning at midnight._
------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------
| | Date. | Date.
| Authorities.| Old Style. | New Style.
------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------
1725. | | |
Advance party under Chirikoff | | |
left St. Petersburg | H. L. | Jan. 24. | Feb. 4.
Bering followed | B. L. M. | Feb. 5. | Feb. 16.
Bering arrived at Tobolsk | B. H. L. M. | March 16. | March 27.
Bering left Tobolsk | Bering. | May 15. | May 27.
Bering arrived at Ilimsk, | | |
where they spent the winter | | |
of 1725-6 | L. | Sept. 29. | Oct. 10.
Lunar eclipse obs. at Ilimsk | Chirikoff. | Oct. 10. |
| | |
1726. | | |
Bering arrived at Yakutsk | L. | Mid. June. | End June.
Bering left Yakutsk | L. | Aug. 16. | Aug. 27.
Bering reached Okhotsk | L. | Sept. 30. | Oct. 11.
Bering's provision train | | |
arrived at Okhotsk | L. | End Oct. | Mid. Nov.
| | |
1727. | | |
Spanberg reached Okhotsk | | |
(Jan. 6, L) | M. H. | Jan. 1. | Jan. 12.
Vessel _Fortuna_ launched at | | |
Okhotsk | L. | June 8. | June 19.
Spanberg sailed for Bolshoia | | |
river | M. H. L. | June 30. | July 11.
Chirikoff arrived at Okhotsk | B. M. L. | July 3. | July 14.
Spanberg returned with Fortuna| L. | Aug. 11. | Aug. 22.
Bering and party sailed for | | |
Bolshoia river (Lauridsen | | |
says August 19) | B. M. H. | Aug. 21. | Sept. 1.
Bering arrived at Bolshoia | | |
river | M. | Sept. 2. | Sept. 13.
Bering arrived at Bolsheretsk | L. | Sept. 4. | Sept. 15.
| | |
1728. | | |
Partial eclipse of moon, | | |
visible in Kamchatka, last | | |
contact 7^h 41^m P.M. | Oppolzer. | Feb. 14. | Feb. 25.
Bering arrived at Lower | | |
Kamchatka | L. | March 11. | March 22.
Vessel Gabriel put on the | | |
stocks | B. H. M. | April 4. | April 15.
The Gabriel launched | | |
(Lauridsen says she sailed | | |
to the mouth of the river | | |
July 9) | B. H. M. | June 10. | June 21.
The expedition left the river | | |
to commence explorations | B. H. L. | July 13. | July 24.
The expedition sailed | | |
northward | M. | July 14. | July 25.
Bering reached his | | |
northernmost point and | | |
started on his return | M. H. B. L. | Aug. 15. | Aug. 26.
They reached the Kamchatka | | |
river on their return | H. L. | Sept. 2. | Sept. 13.
| | |
1729. | | |
Total eclipse of the moon, | | |
visible in this region, | | |
beginning at 6^h 06^m A.M. | Oppolzer. | Feb. 2. | Feb. 13.
Bering sailed E. from | | |
Kamchatka river (Lauridsen | | |
says July, which is | | |
erroneous) | M. H. | June 5. | June 16.
Bering steered to the | | |
southwest | L. | June 8. | June 19.
The party arrived at | | |
Bolsheretsk | | July 2. | July 13.
Bering sailed for Okhotsk | L. | July 14. | July 25.
Bering arrived at Okhotsk | M. Ber. | July 23. | Aug. 3.
Bering left Okhotsk | H. | July 29. | Aug. 9.
Total eclipse of the moon | | |
same day, but not visible | | |
in this part of Asia | Oppolzer. | July 29. | Aug. 9.
| | |
1730. | | |
Bering arrived at St. | | |
Petersburg | H. M. B. L. | March 1. | March 12.
------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------
SYNOPSIS OF THE VOYAGE.
The dates are reduced to the Julian calendar from the nautical account.
The longitude is stated in degrees east from Greenwich.
June 10/21, 1728. The vessel, which was named the _Gabriel_, was
launched at the Lower Kamchatka fort and loaded with a year's supply of
provisions for forty men (B. C. H. M.). She resembled the packet boats
used in the Baltic.
_Notes._--This vessel was constructed of the Kamchatkan spruce, a
species according to Kittlitz closely resembling _Abies canadensis_ of
America. There is also a smaller species, _A. mertensiana_, and by
distillation of these two trees the deficiency in their supply of tar
or pitch was made up. The rigging, sail-cloth, oakum and anchors had
been transferred with great labor from Tobolsk. The planking and
timbers were doubtless fastened with trenails and not with spikes, so
the amount of iron used was much smaller than it would be in most
modern vessels. The provisioning of the expedition is the subject of a
fanciful paragraph garbled from Bering's original report, which has
been quoted by every one of the historians of the voyage from D'Anville
to Lauridsen. I transcribe it from Brooke's translation of 1736, pp.
437-8.
"The provisions consisted of Carrots for want of Corn (=grain or
wheat), the fat of Fish uncured served instead of Butter and salt fish
supplied the place of all other meats."
Campbell in Harris' Voyages, p. 1020, still further enlarges this
statement and Lauridsen puts it
"Fish oil was his butter and dried fish his beef and pork. Salt he was
obliged to get from the sea," and "he distilled spirits from 'sweet
straw.'"
This gives a totally false idea of the supplies provided for the
expedition. Bering received from Yakutsk over forty-two tons of flour,
and large numbers, fifty at a time, of the small Siberian cattle were
driven on the hoof to Okhotsk where their flesh was partly dried and
partly salted. On his return he delivered surplus supplies to the
proper officers in Kamchatka and at Okhotsk ever 30,000 lbs. of meal,
flour and salt meat. There were at that time no carrots to be had in
Kamchatka as Bering himself testifies. Salted salmon then as now,
formed a staple article of diet in Kamchatka and was without doubt
included in his stores. The delicate fat obtained by boiling the
bellies of the salmon, is annually prepared in Kamchatka and is
regarded to this day as a great delicacy (cf. Voyage of the _Marchesa_,
2d edition, p. 135.) A store of it might without any hardship be
furnished to the commander for use as butter. Salt he obtained as it is
usually obtained by evaporating sea-water, and the absence of strong
drink of European origin was supplied by a distillation of the stalks
of the bear's foot or "sweet herb" of the Cossacks (_Heracleum dulce_
Kittlitz), long used for that purpose by the Russians in Siberia and
from which, even in modern times, according to Seemann, the Kamchadales
secured additions to their scanty supply of syrup or sugar.
The supplies then of the expedition, were not inferior to those in
common use at sea at that period, and as far as health is concerned
were certainly less likely to result in an invasion of scurvy than the
use of salt beef and pork alone would have been.
It must be remembered that the fare on naval vessels all over the world
in those days, was rude and coarse to a degree now long unknown and
that it was not until the voyages of Cook, nearly half a century later,
that the antiscorbutic and varied regimen, now usually enforced by law
in maritime nations, was even thought of.
The force crowded together on the little _Gabriel_ is enumerated by
Lauridsen presumably from the account of Bergh.
It consisted beside the commander, of Lieutenants Martin Spanberg and
Alexie Chirikoff; Second Lieutenant Peter Chaplin, Doctor Nieman, a
quartermaster, eight sailors, a worker in leather, a rope maker, five
carpenters, a boatswain, two cossacks with a drummer and nine marines,
six servants, stewards, etc., and two Kariak interpreters, a cabin boy
and a pilot, in all forty-four persons.
It is not clear from Lauridsen's account whether in the above list are
or are not included the two mates, Richard Engel and George Morison, or
the cartographer Potiloff, who started with Bering from St. Petersburg.
Luzhin was left behind, being ill.
July 13/24. The variation of the compass was determined to be 13° 10'
easterly (L.). In the afternoon (being the 14th nautical reckoning) the
vessel left the Kamchatka river. (B. C. H.) They steered to the
northeast along the coast, which was kept in sight to the north and
west, in from nine to twelve fathoms water. As the point of departure
Cape Kamchatka was determined to be in north latitude 56° 3' (M. L.)
_Notes._--The variation of the compass in 1885 was 2° 30' easterly
(Schott). As will be seen by the Table of Positions, the latitude above
given for the cape is not the same as that adopted by Bering on his
chart. The depth mentioned shows that the _Gabriel_ must have kept
within a few miles, probably not exceeding ten, from the shore and the
very slow progress made, as indicated by the log, not much exceeding
two miles an hour gives rise to the suspicion that, in the early part
of the voyage, in order to keep their survey continuous, they probably
lay to during the hours of darkness. Off Karaginski Island the
variation of the compass was determined to be the same as at the mouth
of the Kamchatka river.
From this date to the 27th, the accessible authorities give no data,
and the expedition probably pursued its way uneventfully.
July 27/Aug. 7. This day a prominent Cape was passed at a distance of
some three miles. [It was named St. Thaddeus, after the saint on whose
holy day it was again seen on the return voyage.] Many grampus,
porpoises, seals and sealions were seen (L.).
_Notes._--This Cape St. Thaddeus is not the cape of the same name on
modern charts, but the cape now known as Cape Navarin. This is evident
from Bering's chart. Bering's position for the cape is in error about
fifteen miles in latitude and three degrees in longitude on his chart,
while in the list of positions, the error is only about five miles of
latitude and half a degree in longitude.
From near Cape Thaddeus Bering stood across Anadyr Gulf, out of sight
of the low land, missing Anadyr Bay, and thereby falling into the error
of placing on his chart the mouth of the Anadyr River south of the
cape. The error was subsequently corrected by G. F. Müller.
Lauridsen observes (American edition, p. 30), that "having sailed past
the Anadyr River without quite being able to find their bearings, in
regions of which they had not a single astronomical determination,"
etc. This is absurd. They had a compass and there is no reason why they
should not find their bearings, and it is certain they were there to
make observations and not to verify those already made. No apology is
needed for Bering's determination to press more rapidly northward. It
was in accordance with common sense, considering the lateness of the
season and the uncertainty of what they had to accomplish before the
season closed.
Aug. 1/12. Festival of the Holy Cross. The expedition saw land to the
northward and soon after entered a great bay which they named Holy
Cross Bay. This they explored to the river at its head which they named
Bolshoia (Great) River, and on the western point of entrance the
latitude was, Aug. 2/13, observed to be 65° 35' north, while the
longitude by dead reckoning was estimated at 182° 15' east of
Greenwich, and the magnetic variation ¾ of a point easterly.
_Notes._--Lauridsen says (p. 31, American edition) that in Holy Cross
Bay the _Gabriel_ spent two days under sail in search of fresh water
and a place to anchor. This is extremely singular, as there is an
anchorage immediately at the entrance to the bay, on the starboard
hand, and runs of fresh water are abundant. The application of an
obvious correction[10] to the list of positions given by Campbell makes
the position at the western elbow or spit, at the mouth of Holy Cross
Bay, that which is given above. This position is over a degree too far
west and over six miles too far south. But Lauridsen (quoting Campbell
without observing the blunder?) not stating the source of his
information, gives a position (N. Lat. 62° 50') which is two hundred
and twelve miles too far south and the English translation improves
upon this by making it 60° 50', or three hundred and thirty-two miles
south of the truth, or two hundred and sixty-five miles south of the
entrance to the bay as platted on Bering's own chart.
[Footnote 10: In Harris' Voy., 2d ed., ii, p. 1021, Bering's table of
positions is printed:
(N. Lat.) (Lon. E. Tobolsk)
_Nischuvi Kamschatska Oostrog_ 56° 11', 98° 30'
The Mouth of the river of the Apostle
_Thadeus_ and the Cape 56° 03', 96° 10'
The Elbow of the river _Swetoi Krest_ 62° 20', 111° 32'
Eastern Point 65° 35', 115° 15'
This should read, errors and misplacements corrected:
Lat. Long.
Nizhni Kamschatsk Ostrog 56° 11', 95° 30'
The mouth of the River (Kamchatka) 56° 03', 96° 10'
The Cape of the Apostle _Thaddens_ 62° 20', 111° 32'
The western cape (or spit) of Svietoi
Krest Bay 65° 35', 115° 15'
The words in parentheses are added by the writer for clearness. It is
somewhat surprising that in using this table nobody seems to have
recognized these errors.]
Bering's table in his report and Bering's chart as printed by D'Anville
differ from each other fifteen miles in latitude and two degrees and
twenty-five minutes or nearly seventy-five miles in longitude. The
chart is the more correct, but it differs more than thirty miles in
latitude and nearly a degree in longitude from the modern observations
of Lütké and Rodgers for the same locality. After leaving Holy Cross
Bay, the voyage was continued to the southeast along the "high and
rocky coast" of which Lauridsen (probably paraphrasing Bergh) says that
"every indentation was very carefully explored." This is obviously a
flight of fancy, since a good part of this coast is low and sandy,
while there is no indication of two excellent harbors which it affords,
on any of the charts of Bering or his successors in that century.
Aug. 6/17, 1728. This day, the festival of the Transfiguration, found
the _Gabriel_ entering a small bay, which on that account was named
Transfiguration (Preobrazhenia) Bay. Here they anchored (L.).
Lieutenant Chaplin was sent ashore for water and found native huts but
no people.
_Notes._--This bay has never been surveyed, and on the best modern
charts is merely indicated, while on many others it is omitted
altogether or the name transferred to the anchorage north of Cape
Bering or to Plover Bay. Bering's position for the spit at the entrance
of Transfiguration Bay is two degrees and a quarter too far east and
sixteen miles too far north by the table, but his chart gives the
position much more closely, with a difference from Rodgers' chart of
not exceeding five miles.
Aug. 7/18. They proceeded along the coast in a south-southeasterly
direction.
_Note._--The total eclipse of the moon of this date could hardly have
been observed by Bering, since the moon must have been close to the
horizon and first contact of the shadow occurred only about five
minutes before the moon set. As Bering does not mention it, it is not
likely that he noted the eclipse.
Aug. 8/19. At seven in the morning a skin-boat (umiak or bidarrá) was
observed to be launched from the shore, eight men getting into it and
rowing toward the vessel (B.). They approached within hail, and were
understood, through the aid of the Kariak interpreters on board the
_Gabriel_, to enquire whence the vessel came and what was the object of
the expedition in entering these waters. After much persuasion one of
the natives left the skin-boat and swam, sustaining himself on two
inflated seal-skins tied by a pole, to the _Gabriel_ and came on board
and the others, seeing that no harm befel him, came nearer the vessel
shortly afterward (M. B. C.). The interpreters had some difficulty in
understanding all the natives said, but it was gathered from their
conversation that these people called themselves Chukchi (or by an
analogous name); that they were acquainted with the Russians, by report
or otherwise, that there were numerous settlements of their people
along this shore; that the Anadyr River lay far to the west (L.); that
to the south and east lay an island which would soon be visible to the
people on the _Gabriel_ if they continued on the course they were then
steering; that in the vicinity of this island the shore of the mainland
changes its direction and extends beyond to the north and then to the
westward (B. M. C. H.). The man who had boarded the vessel was given
some presents and sent back to the native boat, in the hope that he
would persuade his comrades to come on board the _Gabriel_, but,
suspecting some evil design, the natives pulled away toward the shore
and disappeared. According to Bergh, Chaplin's journal expresses regret
that more important information could not be obtained owing to the
difficulty in interpreting what was said by the Chukchi. At noon the
latitude was estimated to be 64° 30'. In the afternoon the cape
mentioned by the Chukchis was seen.
_Notes._--The account given in Bering's report, and variously rendered
by Müller, Brooks, D'Anville and Campbell, differs in several details
from that given in Chaplin's journal and described by Bergh and
Lauridsen. The various English versions of both fail in clearly
rendering the important point gained by this interview with the
natives, which was, that, at a short distance, the main coast changes
its direction and turns to the north and west. These Chukchis pointed
the way to the strait for the party on the _Gabriel_, and their account
proved to be accurate in every particular.
The people of this part of the coast call themselves _Tsau-chú_, which
is their tribal name. The similar name of another branch living near
the Anadyr River has been corrupted into the word Chuk-chi, by the
Russians, from which we derive our general name for these people.
Lauridsen says "Breden var 64° 41'" which in the American edition
stands, "the longitude (sic) was 64° 41'." But the original and all the
variants of Bering's own report make the latitude 64° 30' which is
correct. If it had been 64° 41' they would have been north of their own
position for Transfiguration Bay, from which their course had been
S.S.E., therefore the 41' is certainly erroneous.
On Bering's chart he refers to the point of the coast where the shore
changes its direction under the name _Chukotskago Noss_, which means
the promontory of the Chukchi, though this is not the same as the
Chukchi Cape of the Anadyr Cossacks, who so denominated the eastern
extreme of Asia, which they knew from report and by the voyage of
Deshneff. There can be no reasonable doubt that Bering named his cape
after the people who had described it to him, although the
imperfections of the record leave this to be inferred. Bering's map
gives the latitude of the south extreme of the cape as about 64° 02',
and it is erroneously represented as extending south of the latitude of
the northwest end of St. Lawrence Island. Its real latitude is about
fifteen miles further north. Cook made it 64° 13'. Chaplin's journal
(according to Lauridsen) makes it 64° 18', which would agree with the
latest surveys very nearly, though the coincidence must be regarded as
a happy accident in view of their imperfect tables, instruments and
methods. Bering's report places its eastern extreme in 64° 25' and
(wrongly) in the same longitude as the west end of St. Lawrence Island.
Aug. 10/21. St. Lawrence's day. The island referred to by the Chukchi
was seen and the vessel stood toward it, about two o'clock in the
afternoon. Twice, an officer with a four-oared boat was sent to
reconnoiter the coast more closely, but he saw only what appeared to be
huts without inhabitants (C). The island (of which only the northwest
hilly portion was seen, owing to the hazy weather) was named after the
patron saint of the day and the course of the vessel was changed to the
northward.
Aug. 11/22. At noon the latitude was estimated at 64° 20', and at
sunset an attempt was made by the determination of the magnetic
variation to get the longitude (L.).
_Notes._--An illustration of the want of care with which Lauridsen has
weighed his comments, it may be pointed out that he claims (p. 32, Am.
Ed.) that on reaching latitude 64° 20' the _Gabriel_ was in Bering
Strait, while two pages later, on her return southward, he declares her
to have got out of the strait on reaching latitude 64° 27'! As a matter
of fact, at the present day, the whalers and traders of this region
consider that Cape Chaplin (more commonly known as Indian Point) forms
the southwest point of entrance to the strait; and this point is
situated in latitude 64° 25' and E. longitude 187° 40', as determined
by the writer in 1880. This is perhaps the point referred to by Bering
as the eastern point of his Chukotskoi Cape.
The magnetic method of determining the longitude would give correct
results only accidentally, as previously explained. The result
announced by Lauridsen for the present occasion is 25° 31' east from
Lower Kamchatka Ostrog or 187° 51' east from Greenwich, which would be
within a few miles of the latest determinations. But it is obvious from
Bering's map that he could not have made his position less than 28° 45'
east from Lower Kamchatka, and the position above given is perhaps an
interpolation from modern sources, which has been misunderstood or
mistranslated. As Lauridsen has paraphrased, not quoted, it is
impossible in the absence of Bergh's original to determine who is
responsible for the incongruity. An interpolation seems the more likely
since Bering himself gives the longitude as 189° 55' E. Gr.[11]
[Footnote 11: A glance at Bergh shows that this statement of Lauridsen
is simply a blunder. Bergh only says they obtained the magnetic
variation (25° 31' easterly) by an _amplitude_ observation! Longitude
is not mentioned, nor Kamchatka.]
Aug. 12/23. From noon of the 11th to noon of this day, the _Gabriel_
sailed sixty-nine miles, but the difference of latitude was only 21
miles. The wind was light to fresh and the weather overcast (L.).
_Notes._--If the above statement be taken literally with the assumption
that they were at noon of the 11th in latitude 64° 20' and E. longitude
188° from Greenwich, it would give their position for noon of the 12th
as 64° 49' and longitude 190° 45' E. Gr., which does not at all accord
with the subsequently narrated course, etc. If we proceed on the
hypothesis that it means that the log recorded 69 miles and that only
29 miles were made good (which might easily happen if the polar current
were running strong on the west side of the strait) and that their
course was parallel with the Siberian shore in a general way they would
have been, at noon of August 12th, in latitude 64° 49' and longitude
188° E. Gr. or thereabouts, which agrees very fairly with the known
circumstances.
Aug. 13/24. A fresh breeze and cloudy weather. The _Gabriel_ sailed the
whole day with no land in sight and the difference in latitude was only
78 miles at noon, reckoned from noon of the 12th. The wind diminished
toward night.
_Notes._--On the same hypothesis as to the meaning of "difference in
latitude" as the words are used by Lauridsen, the _Gabriel_ at noon of
the 13th would have been ten or twelve miles south from East Cape and
in about latitude 65° 55'. If the words are to be taken literally, as a
navigator would use them, the _Gabriel_ would have been about fifteen
miles to the northward and eastward of East Cape, which agrees much
less with the subsequently detailed circumstances. With the nautical
day beginning at noon on the 13th according to Lauridsen the weather
began to be calm and cloudy which would check their progress.
Aug. 14/25. This is the festival of Saint Demetrius of Africa. A
current was experienced during this day which was estimated to have
helped the vessel northward eight miles and three quarters. This
current ran from south-southeast to north-northwest. From noon of the
13th to noon of this day the vessel sailed 29 miles in addition to the
current drift. At noon the latitude was estimated to be 66° 41' and
high land was visible astern. At three o'clock in the afternoon high
mountains were observed to the southward, which, says Chaplin, "were
probably on the continent."
_Notes._--Under any hypothesis either the run of the vessel was
underestimated or the latitude was overestimated. Adding the estimated
run to the position attained under our hypothesis for the 12th and 13th
it will put the _Gabriel_ at noon, August 14th, in about north latitude
66° 24' and longitude E. Gr. 191° 30'. Chaplin's reckoning as given by
Lauridsen would have put the _Gabriel_ more than fifty miles off shore
when the land spoken of would have been out of sight. Our hypothesis
puts her about twenty-eight miles N.E. true from East Cape when the
high land of either shore, under favorable circumstances, might have
been seen even if the sky were overcast. Clouds do not interfere with
seeing, unless attended by fog or haze. During this day the _Gabriel_
had sailed between East Cape and the islands now known as the Diomedes;
the shore being near by. Why then should it be noted in the log that
"high land was seen astern" at noon? The high land of Siberia they had
seen and sailed along for days in full sight of it. It seems to us that
this excludes the idea that the log refers to the Siberian highland and
that what was seen was the loom of land not before seen, as of the
Diomedes or even of America. It may not have been clear to the
commander and yet have been marked enough for the subordinate officer
to have put it in his log, with the dead reckoning and daily notes.[12]
On several old charts mention is made of land seen by Spanberg which is
supposed to have been America, after Gwosdeff had confirmed the
existence of the American mainland in that direction and Synd had
landed upon it. This suggestion is not unimportant in connection with
the subsequent conduct of Bering and will be referred to again in its
proper connection. The further fact that all early printed versions of
Bering's list of positions, refer to the modern Diomedes only as the
island of _St. Demetrius_ and that this day was the festival of that
obscure saint, lends further confirmation to the above suggestions.
[Footnote 12: Lauridsen gets over the discrepancy by putting the word
"still" before "seen" (Am. Ed., p. 41), but there is nothing in the
original sources to confirm this view of the matter.]
Aug. 15/26. The _Gabriel_ appears to have continued to sail in a
northeasterly direction until three o'clock in the afternoon, having
been aided by the current to the extent of 8¾ miles and sailed 65
miles; many whales were seen and the depth averaged between 23 and 36
fathoms. Since the 13th the water had appeared whitish or discolored.
The wind was moderate and the weather cloudy. Between noon and three
o'clock the vessel made seven miles against a head wind. The position
of the _Gabriel_ at that time was estimated to be in north latitude 67°
18' and 30° 17' east longitude from the town of Lower Kamchatka (C.
corrected).
_Note._--The nautical day Aug. 15 extending from noon of the 14th to
noon of the 15th is altogether omitted from the American translation of
Lauridsen's book. The position for the turning point estimated by
Chaplin is manifestly by dead reckoning, as the sky was cloudy. It was
not adopted in the list of positions published by Campbell in Harris'
Voyages nor on Bering's map. In the former the longitude he adopts is
27° 37' east of Lower Kamchatka fort, and this agrees exactly with the
point on the coast in Du Halde's engraving of Bering's map where the
mountains cease to be put down near the shore, the point on the north
coast of Siberia where Lauridsen, and Chaplin as quoted by him, say
Bering did not go, and the point which has been generally regarded as
Bering's farthest!
If we apply the distance and direction from Chaplin's journal to the
course of the _Gabriel_ platted from his preceding data, literally, it
will put the turning point of the voyage in N. latitude 67° 32' and E.
longitude 193° 37' or thereabouts, which is about thirty-five miles off
the American coast southwest from Cape Seppings. But if we do this the
position is far from agreeing with Chaplin's. By applying the
hypothetical correction which we have heretofore used, the position
would be in latitude 67° 24' and E. longitude 193° 15' from Greenwich
or 31° east from Lower Kamchatka fort, agreeing more nearly with
Chaplin. On the other hand the position off Cape Seppings agrees better
with Chaplin's figures for the remainder of the day.
At this point the commander of the expedition determined to turn
homeward. The _Gabriel_ was put on a course S. by E. by compass (S. by
W. ½ W. true, the variation allowed being 2½ points easterly) before a
brisk seven knot breeze, making better time than is recorded for any
part of her outward voyage.
_Notes._--Lauridsen says[13] that, in terminating the outward voyage,
Bering "announced that as he had now accomplished his task it was his
duty, according to his orders, to return." Müller and other authorities
quote, more or less modified in the translation, the reasons given in
Bering's report. But, as there is no reason to suppose these were
uttered to the ship's company officially at the time, a consideration
of them may be deferred until the total results of the voyage are
discussed. The course set, according to Chaplin's journal, would, if
made good, have carried the _Gabriel_ east of the Diomedes and close to
Cape Prince of Wales. The northwesterly current referred to by Chaplin
and recognized by most navigators who have since visited those seas,
would have carried the vessel more to the westward, as was actually the
result, and it was probably allowed for.
[Footnote 13: Bergh (p. 54) quotes Chaplin's journal, which says: "At
three o'clock Captain Bering announced: _that it was necessary for him,
in spite of his instructions, to turn back_, and put the vessel about
with orders to steer S. by E. by compass." The italics are Bergh's, who
adds that, in the journal of Lieut. Chirikoff, the same statement is
made in the same words. I transliterate the italicized phrases
according to the schedule for Russian letters published in _Nature_,
Feb. 27, 1890. "Chto nadlezhit emu protiv ukazu vo ispolnenie
vozvratit'sya." This plain statement, which proves that (at the moment)
Bering recognized that he was not fulfilling his orders, is suppressed
by Lauridsen and of course by Bering himself when he came to prepare
his official report. Lauridsen however is not satisfied with
suppressing the truth, which would have weighed so heavily against his
hero and his argument, but, with the truth in his possession, he has
inserted in his book a statement which is diametrically opposed to it
as above cited.]
August 16/27. Saint Diomede's day. The _Gabriel_ had kept on her course
with a free wind making more than seven knots (miles) an hour. At nine
in the morning they found themselves off a high promontory on the west,
where there were Chukchi habitations. On the east and seaward they saw
an island, which it was proposed to call after the saint of the day. At
noon the vessel had made since the previous noon 115 miles and had
reached latitude 66° 02'. Continuing on their way, with a fresh breeze
and cloudy weather, they sailed along the Asiatic coast near enough to
observe many natives and at two places they saw dwellings. At three
P.M. very high land and mountains were passed (probably the highlands
near St. Lawrence Bay).
_Notes._--From 3 P.M. Aug. 15th to 9 A.M. Aug. 16th is 18 hours, which
at seven knots an hour (allowing the alleged excess to be the
equivalent of the drift caused by the current) would amount to 126
miles. Deduct from this the seven miles sailed between noon and 3 P.M.
Aug. 15th in the opposite direction and we have remaining 119 miles
made on the homeward voyage at a time when the _Gabriel_ was between
the Diomedes and East Cape, or at least in plain sight of both. But
three hours later, at noon, according to Lauridsen, they had made only
115 miles in all, although the breeze was fresh and fair. From
Chaplin's position for the turning point to latitude 66° 02' off East
Cape is 96 miles. From our hypothetically corrected position for the
turning point, off Cape Seppings, the distance would be to the same
place 126 miles, or thereabouts. It is evident that there is a
miscalculation, or an error in the record here, which, without further
data, it is not possible to correct.
It is certain that Bering with whom the right of naming any new island
would have rested, did not then name the island above mentioned after
St Diomede. On all copies of the earlier version of his chart it
appears if at all under the name of the Island of St. Demetrius. From
this we may suspect that he identified it with the high land seen Aug.
14th, St. Demetrius' day, while others on board, suspecting they were
not the same proposed the name of Diomede for the present island;
regarding the high land as something distinct. If the hardy and
self-willed Spanberg was the one who reported the land Aug. 14th, and
if he saw the high land about Cape Prince of Wales, as several old
charts allege, he would have been the last to admit that the relatively
small and adjacent island now seen, should be identified with his
discovery.
Aug. 17/28. The breeze having been strong and fair an observation at
noon indicated that the latitude was 64° 27' and that the _Gabriel_ had
sailed 164 miles since noon of the 16th. In the afternoon the weather
was clear and the wind became light. (The _Gabriel_ must have come out
of the strait this afternoon).
_Notes._--A distance of 164 miles from the position of the previous
noon would have put the _Gabriel_ in latitude 63° 38'. The distance on
the general course sailed by the _Gabriel_ from 66° 02' to 64° 27' is
about 107 miles. It is possible that in copying or printing 104 miles
has become transmuted to 164 miles. There is an obvious error here of
some kind.
Aug. 18/29. (Lauridsen does not refer to any record for this day, but
it is probable that the wind continued light and the weather fair and
that the _Gabriel_ was slowly working her way westward and southward in
the vicinity of Cape Chukotski.)
Aug. 19/30. In the afternoon being in the vicinity of the place where
they had met the Chukchi boat on the outward voyage, four baidars were
seen with their crews pulling for the vessel, which accordingly lay by
for them to come up with her. There were ten natives to each baidar, or
forty in all. They brought reindeer meat, fish, and fresh water in
large bladders for sale for which they were suitably rewarded, while
the crew of the _Gabriel_ obtained from them skins of the red and the
polar foxes and four walrus teeth, which the natives bartered for
needles, flint-and-steel for striking fire, and iron. These Chukchi
told them that they went over land to trade at the Kolyma River,
carrying their goods with reindeer, and that they never went by sea.
They had long known the Russians and one of them had even been to the
Anadyrsk fort to trade. From this man they had hopes of gaining
valuable information but he could tell them nothing more than they had
learned from the first Chukchis who had been questioned.
Aug. 20/31 to Aug. 29/Sept. 9. (For this period the documents
accessible to me give no information, but the _Gabriel_ was doubtless
pursuing her homeward way uneventfully along the coast of Kamchatka.)
Aug. 30/Sept. 10. A heavy storm arose with fog and the _Gabriel_
finding herself dangerously close to the shore anchored near the land
to ride it out. A note in Harris indicates that they may have been near
Karaginski Island.
Aug. 31/Sept. 11. At one P.M. the storm had abated, but in weighing
anchor the cable had been so chafed by the rocky bottom that it parted
and they lost the anchor, and were obliged to put to sea without
recovering it.
Sept. 1/12, 1728. At five o'clock in the afternoon they approached and
at seven the next morning entered the mouth of the Kamchatka river,
thus ending the voyage.
_Note._--The _Gabriel_ was secured in a slough of the river and the
party went up the river to the fort of Lower Kamchatka where Bering
passed the winter.
It is certain that the residents of Kamchatka and others more or less
familiar with the reports of Cossack explorations in Chukchi-land were
not altogether satisfied with the summary manner in which exploration
had been given up by Bering, and his apparent assumption that there was
no adjacent land to the eastward except small islands. More or less
such discussion and criticism could hardly have failed to reach his
ears, and his reflections may have led him to think that, after all, he
had been too hasty. Trees not indigenous to Kamchatka had been seen
floating near the shores, no heavy breakers ever proceeded from the
eastward and it was even alleged that land or the loom of land might be
seen to the east from the coast mountains in very clear weather. On
account of these and other reasons[14] which were urged by residents of
the country, Bering determined to make a new trial. Instead of
proceeding directly to Okhotsk across Kamchatka he fitted out the
_Gabriel_ for another voyage. Beside the fact that Luzhin, one of his
cartographers, had explored the Kurile Islands lying next to Kamchatka,
the vessel _Fortuna_ during Bering's absence had doubled Cape Lopatka
and was anchored in the Kamchatka River when Bering entered it on his
return. It was therefore evident that the straits were navigable and
the return voyage might be made that way. Spanberg was ordered to
Bolsheretsk "on account of illness" (L.), and it is possible he took
the _Fortuna_ back there since she had already returned to Bolsheretsk
when Bering reached that port, on his way to Okhotsk.
[Footnote 14: The natives even claimed that a man had been stranded on
the coast of Kamchatka in 1715, who stated that his own country lay to
the eastward and contained forests with high trees and large rivers.
(Lauridsen, op. cit. Am. ed. p. 51). Bering himself states that he made
the search of 1729 at the instance of the Kamchatkan residents.]
Lauridsen has ascribed to Bering's own initiative the willingness to
make another search for land as if these ideas were original with him.
It is evident that this is unjustified and fanciful. Müller's account
shows that the incitement to a second attempt proceeded from the
residents of the country and that Bering complied with their
suggestions; and Bering says so himself in his report.
On June[15] 5/16, 1729, the _Gabriel_ left the mouth of the Kamchatka
River and stood to the eastward, directly off shore. She continued on
this course about forty-eight hours, sailing a distance variously
estimated at from ninety to one hundred and thirty miles. The weather
was foggy, no land was seen, the wind shifted to dead ahead at east
northeast, and on the third day Bering gave up the search and steered
for the southern coast of Kamchatka, the extreme of which is marked by
the point known as Narrow (Ooskoi) Cape, or more generally as Shovel
(Lopatka) Cape, from its low square termination. He determined the
latitude of this cape, and passing through the strait south of it
reached Bolsheretsk on the west coast of the peninsula on the second of
July. Most of this time was probably spent in tracing the form of the
southern part of Kamchatka. Half way between the Kamchatka River and
the coast the variation was observed to be one point easterly, and off
Avatcha Bay three-quarters of a point easterly.
[Footnote 15: Lauridsen says July, which is erroneous.]
In the American translation of Lauridsen it is said (p. 51) that Bering
fixed the difference of latitude (for which one should read longitude)
between Bolsheretsk and Lower Kamchatka Ostrog at 6° 29'. But on
Bering's maps the difference is only 3° 50', while in his list of
positions no longitude is assigned to Lower Kamchatka post. In
Campbell's list it stands at 8° 39', which the correction of an evident
error of 98° for 95° reduces to 5° 39'. The true difference of
longitude according to the latest charts is about 5° 25'. Where
Lauridsen got his figures he does not state. Campbell, in Harris,
states that Bering was the first navigator to double Cape Lopatka, but
the _Fortuna_ had made this voyage in 1728, though her commander is not
known.
At Bolsheretsk Bering left a crew for the _Fortuna_ which had returned
thither; turned over some of his surplus stores to the local
authorities and on the 14/25 July sailed from the Bolshoia River for
Okhotsk. Here he arrived July 23/Aug. 3 and after some days spent in
turning over government property to the local officials and procuring
his horses and outfit, he left Okhotsk July 29/Aug. 9 on the overland
journey to St. Petersburg. The second eclipse of the moon for the year
occurred on this day, but during hours of daylight, and hence was
invisible in this part of Asia.
After an uneventful but successful journey Bering arrived in St.
Petersburg Mar. 1/12, 1730, bringing with him, according to Du Halde,
the map and report he had prepared upon his explorations.
TABLE OF GEOGRAPHICAL POSITIONS DERIVED FROM BERING'S FIRST VOYAGE,
REDUCED TO GREENWICH, E. LONGITUDE.
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Meridian used in the | Tobolsk. | Tobolsk. | Tobolsk. | Greenwich.
original, | | | |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Amount used for | +67°. | +67°. | +67°. |
reduction, | | | |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Source of the data, | Bering[16]| Campbell. | Du Halde. | Modern
| MS. | [17] | | charts.
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Date, | 1730? | 1730? | 1736. | 1852-88.
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
| ° ' | ° ' | ° ' | ° '
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Okhotsk | 58 54 | 59 13 | 58 54 | 59 20[18]
| 141 30 | 143 07 | 141 20 | 142 40
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Bolsheretsk, | 52 35 | 52 42 | 52 40 | 52 51
Kamchatka | 155 28 | 156 51 | 155 25 | 156 50
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Upper Kamchatka | 54 10 | 54 48 | 54 10 | -- --
settlement | 157 10 | 158 00 | 157 15 | -- --
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Lower Kamchatka | 55 46 | 56 11 | 55 50 | 56 15
settlement | 159 28 | 162 30[19]| 159 15 | 162 15
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape, at Kamchatka | 55 52 | 56 03 | 55 40 | 56 00
river-mouth | 162 05 | 163 10[20]| 162 10 | 163 05
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Thaddeus | 61 50 | 62 20 | 62 00 | 62 15
(Navarin) | 176 05 | 178 32[21]| 176 00 | 179 02
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
West point, entrance | 65 16 | 65 35 | 65 15 | 65 28
Holy Cross Bay | 179 40 | 182 15[22]| 180 00[23]| 181 12
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Mouth of river, Holy | 66 00 | -- -- | 65 50 | 66 22
Cross Bay | 179 40 | -- -- | 179 50 | 180 45
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Transfiguration Bay | 64 45 | 65 01 | 64 40 | 64 45
(east entrance) | 185 15 | 187 30 | 185 10 | 185 15
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Chukotski, of | 63 55 | 64 25 | 64 02 | 64 14
Bering | 186 55 | 189 55[24]| 186 10 | 186 50
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
N. W. point St. | 63 50 | 64 00 | 64 02 | 63 52[25]
Lawrence Id. | 187 00 | 189 55 | 187 20 | 188 27
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
St. Demetrius Id. | 65 42 | 66 00 | -- -- | 65 50
(Big Diomede) | 189 05[26]| 192 42[27]| -- -- | 190 25
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
East Cape of Asia | 66 40 | 67 18 | 66 45 | 66 05
| 189 40 | 193 07[28]| 189 45 | 190 30
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Bering's farthest | not | 67 18 | -- -- | -- --
| indicated.| 193 07[29]| -- -- | -- --
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Petropavlovsk, | 53 10 | 53 12 | 53 15 | 53 02
Avacha Bay | 160 02 | 159 50 | 157 00 | 158 39[30]
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Uskoi, or | 50 50 | 51 10 | 51 10 | 50 52
Lopatka[31] | 155 05 | 156 51 | 155 10 | 156 47
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
(_table continued_)
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Meridian used in the | Tobolsk. | Ferro. | Ferro. | Greenwich.
original, | | | |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Amount used for | +67°. | -18°. | -18°. |
reduction, | | | |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Source of the data, | Bering[16]| D'Anville.| Müller. | Modern
| MS. | | | charts.
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Date, | 1730? | 1753. | 1758. | 1852-88.
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
| ° ' | ° ' | ° ' | ° '
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Okhotsk | 58 54 | -- -- | 59 20 | 59 20[18]
| 141 30 | -- -- | 141 15 | 142 40
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Bolsheretsk, | 52 35 | 52 40 | 52 54[32]| 52 51
Kamchatka | 155 28 | 155 30 | 156 30[33]| 156 50
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Upper Kamchatka | 54 10 | 53 40 | 54 28 | -- --
settlement | 157 10 | 156 30 | 156 55 | -- --
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Lower Kamchatka | 55 46 | 56 05 | 56 20 | 56 15
settlement | 159 28 | 159 00 | 159 30 | 162 15
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape, at Kamchatka | 55 52 | 56 00 | 56 10 | 56 00
river-mouth | 162 05 | 159 20 | 160 20 | 163 05
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Thaddeus | 61 50 | 62 05 | 62 25 | 62 15
(Navarin) | 176 05 | 171 14 | 175 20 | 179 02
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
West point, entrance | 65 16 | 65 15 | 65 30 | 65 28
Holy Cross Bay | 179 40 | 175 10 | 178 45 | 181 12
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Mouth of river, Holy | 66 00 | 65 45 | 66 15 | 66 22
Cross Bay | 179 40 | 175 00 | 178 15 | 180 45
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Transfiguration Bay | 64 45 | 64 25 | -- -- | 64 45
(east entrance) | 185 15 | 180 00 | -- -- | 185 15
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Chukotski, of | 63 55 | 64 10 | 64 35 | 64 14
Bering | 186 55 | 181 10 | 185 10 | 186 50
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
N. W. point St. | 63 50 | 64 00 | 64 15 | 63 52[25]
Lawrence Id. | 187 00 | 181 20 | 186 05 | 188 27
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
St. Demetrius Id. | 65 42 | 66 00 | -- -- | 65 50
(Big Diomede) | 189 05[26]| 183 20[26]| -- --[34]| 190 25
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
East Cape of Asia | 66 40 | 66 30 | 66 45 | 66 05
| 189 40 | 184 00 | 187 25 | 190 30
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Bering's farthest | not | -- -- | 66 45[35]| -- --
| indicated.| -- -- | 187 25 | -- --
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Petropavlovsk, | 53 10 | 52 50 | 52 55[36]| 53 02
Avacha Bay | 160 02 | 158 55 | 158 13 | 158 39[30]
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Cape Uskoi, or | 50 50 | 51 20 | 51 20[37]| 50 52
Lopatka[31] | 155 05 | 156 00 | 157 00 | 156 47
---------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
[Footnote 16: This column is taken directly from Baron Klinckofström's
manuscript copy of Bering's chart.]
[Footnote 17: Date of Campbell's Harris' Voy., 1748; date of table of
positions, 1728; fide Campbell, 1021, col. 2.]
[Footnote 18: The positions in this column are taken from the most
recent charts of the U. S. Coast Survey and the U. S. and Russian
Hydrographic bureaux.]
[Footnote 19: Campbell has 98° 30' E. of Tobolsk, an error(?), for 95°
30' (=162° 30' E. Gr.). Bering omits this position.]
[Footnote 20: Campbell's confusion of two entries is here corrected
from Bering's Report.]
[Footnote 21: Confused with preceding entry by Campbell.]
[Footnote 22: Campbell's confusion here corrected.]
[Footnote 23: Bering gives both east and west points of entrance in his
table.]
[Footnote 24: The southern end of the cape is assumed to be meant.]
[Footnote 25: U. S. Coast Survey, 1880, Marcus Baker, observer; his
position is reduced to the N. W. extreme of the island by adding 5' of
latitude and deducting 30' 35" in longitude. See Bull. Phil. Soc. of
Washington, iv, p. 133, 1882, and U. S. Coast Survey Report for 1880,
App. No. 16.]
[Footnote 26: St. Diomide on the chart.]
[Footnote 27: The island is omitted by Du Halde and Müller, but appears
on Campbell's version of Bering's chart.]
[Footnote 28: Campbell, p. 1024; omitted by Bering from his report.]
[Footnote 29: Campbell, p. 1022; also Bering's Report.]
[Footnote 30: Lieut. Onatsevich in Report Russ. Hydrographic office,
1878.]
[Footnote 31: Oskoi (error for Ooskoi), on most early charts; sometimes
Osnoi (error for Uzhnoi=southern).]
[Footnote 32: Determined in 1741 by Krassilnikoff to be 52° 55' and
156° 24' E. Gr.]
[Footnote 33: From the chart; on p. 114 Müller has 156° 10'.]
[Footnote 34: Name St. Deomed on chart, but no island represented.]
[Footnote 35: From Jefferys' copy of the chart; on p. 47 of text N.
Lat. 67° 18' appears but no longitude is given.]
[Footnote 36: From the chart; on p. 114 of text it is given as 53° 01'
45". Krassilnikoff (see note 32), made it N. Lat. 53° 01' and 158° 10'
E. Lon. from Greenwich, from eclipses of Jupiter's satellites.]
[Footnote 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?
It is evident that if Bering had sailed along the coast which the
Chukchis said extended to the westward, instead of going off shore,
away from it, he would have confirmed that part of their testimony, and
given high probability to the assumption of their correctness in the
rest.
As it was, he left the question in a state so unsettled as to be a
subject of debate for nearly half a century; even authorities so
friendly as Dr. Campbell assuming with great confidence that Bering's
conclusions as to the separation of the two continents were erroneous.
It was not until the voyages of Captain Cook and his associates were
given to the world in 1784 that the matter was settled beyond
controversy.
Even in regard to the details of his voyage it was only through Bergh's
publication of Chaplin's logbook of the voyage in 1823, that the public
were informed as to what Bering did, and it was only in 1847 that the
unmutilated, but still ambiguous Report of 1730 was accessible even in
Russian typography.
We find that all the authorities who published in the last century
copies of Bering's map and accounts of his expedition arrived at what
Lauridsen calls an "interesting misunderstanding."
This misunderstanding was that he had sailed along the Chukchi coast,
as above suggested, and that his farthest point was in latitude 67° 18'
on the coast of northeastern Siberia.
How was it possible that men of such exceptional intelligence as Du
Halde and D'Anville and Müller, and Hazius, and Euler and Campbell were
all so deceived?
The facts are as follows:
(1) The verbatim Report of the voyage, the logbook of the expedition,
Bering's chart in its entirety, were inaccessible to the public for
many years; the chart has never been fully engraved for publication.
(2) The fragments of the Report which were circulated in print were
ambiguous in their language or erroneously modified; while the
published reductions of the chart which got into print were misleading,
or even erroneous.
(3) Two conflicting versions of the manuscript chart were circulated
and appear to have been officially sent out. That which appears to be
the later of the two is in some details quite erroneous and at variance
with Bering's report as printed and with the facts derived from
Chaplin's logbook, these two constituting the only authentic original
information which has yet reached the public in printed form. But these
two sources of correct data about the expedition were not printed until
long after the charts had been widely circulated, while the extracts
from the Report which appeared in print, even under so friendly an
editor as Dr. Campbell were so modified as to support rather than
expose the original error. How this arose there may be something in the
Russian archives to explain, or, if not, the case seems insoluble.
Whatever conclusion one arrives at, it is difficult to acquit Bering of
all responsibility for the misconception, if, as Lauridsen claims, he
was responsible for the chart of Du Halde in the form it was engraved.
In his report he states that their northernmost latitude was 67° 18',
that "all along the seacoast to this place wind elevated mountains." On
turning to the Du Halde chart we find the range of mountains continued
along the Chukchi coast until it reaches the latitude of 67° 18' where
it stops. If Bering drew the chart so, it would have been deception,
but it is quite as probable that the editor modified the chart in
engraving it, to correspond to his understanding of Bering's ambiguity.
As this would present nothing questionable to the reader, in the
absence of the details omitted by Bering, it would have been nothing
surprising if Campbell's interpolation of a false longitude for Lower
Kamchatka, in his list of positions, might have been, not a
typographical error, but an attempt to make the position agree with
this erroneous assumption. If it was a pure accident, the coincidence
is extraordinary. Of course Bering never was on this coast but Du
Halde's map is so engraved as to lead directly to the false inference
that he had been.
Again Bering says in his Report that at his turning point the land no
longer extended to the north and that no projecting points could be
observed in any direction. Since he had deliberately sailed away from
the shores without attempting to follow their trend this observation
would be absurd unless we suppose it addressed to a reader who took it
for granted that the vessel was still skirting the coast. There is no
mention in his Report of the fact that he had sailed away from the
coast, nor of the still more important fact that the soundings showed
that the water was comparatively shallow and discolored. Of course in
the absence of direct proof of the separation of Asia and America this
last evidence would tend to indicate that Bering was only in a bay or
shallow arm of the sea and that he suppressed it shows, if not a want
of candor, at least an injudicious reticence.
The map for the day when it was made (in the earlier version) was a
good one, and is appropriately praised by Cook, who had a copy of
Campbell's Harris on his vessel when exploring in the same region fifty
years later.
In his report of the trip eastward from Kamchatka in 1729, Bering says
nothing about the weather being foggy or stormy, but merely asserts
that he sailed nearly 200 versts and saw no trace of land. He leaves it
to be inferred that he could have seen land if it had been there to
see, which if the weather was foggy was not true.
The impression which these facts leave upon the mind is that Bering did
certainly frame his language so as to convey the idea that his evidence
of the separation of the two continents and of the absence of land
eastward from Kamchatka was more conclusive than it was in reality.
That this was done to avoid criticism seems a natural inference. That
an examination of his list of positions would have shown the location
of the point whence he turned back to be to the eastward of the
easternmost of his reported land is true, but his list of positions was
not published with his report, does not agree with his maps, and when
published by Campbell was garbled, as I have shown.
That the truth, however, did get out and that criticism was not
successfully avoided, is a matter of history. There can be little doubt
that Bering's anxiety to undertake the second expedition, which
followed, was stimulated by a desire to set these criticisms (which
would naturally be magnified by his enemies) finally at rest.
It may be suggested that Bering's report was modified by the
authorities, though why they should make these particular modifications
is not very evident. Bering was the only person who could profit by
them and the natural conclusion is that he should be held responsible.
In pointing out that some of Bering's acts are vulnerable to criticism
I am far from desiring to sully his memory or give the idea that he was
not entitled to great praise for what he accomplished, much of which
was admirably done.
I wish merely to apply a gentle corrective to the exaggerated and
injurious flattery and undiscriminating praise which has been
injudiciously indulged in by his latest biographer.
If the interest in the subject be stimulated by discussion from these
opposing points of view, so as to result in the publication of some of
the material still hidden in the Russian archives I shall be more than
repaid for the time I have devoted to the question, even if the
publication of the original data should show some of my conclusions to
be ill founded or erroneous.
_Note_--The reception of the original work of Bergh while reading the
proofs of these pages has enabled me to correct several errors of
previous writers, but it was too late to incorporate here the
additional material which Bergh's work affords. This will enable me to
add, in a future publication, some historical data which have never
appeared in English and which are necessary to complete the record. I
desire in this place to express my gratitude for and appreciation of
the liberality of the authorities of that ancient seat of learning, the
University of Upsala, as exhibited in their willingness to send such a
valuable document to a foreign student half around the world for
purposes of historical research.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE BY MARCUS BAKER.
ON THE ALLEGED OBSERVATION OF A LUNAR ECLIPSE BY BERING IN 1728-9.
Bering was in Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka and the adjacent waters in
1728 and 1729. Could he have observed a lunar eclipse there at that
time?
According to the ephemeris of Manfred[1] published at Bonn in 1725
there were two partial eclipses of the moon visible in Europe in 1728,
and two total eclipses of the moon in 1729.
[Footnote 1: Manfredius (Eustachius). Novissimae ephemerides motuum
coelestium e Cassinianis tabulis ad meridianum Bononiae supputatae
auctoribus Eustachio Manfredio (etc.) Tomus 1. ex anno 1726 in annum
1737 (etc.) 4° _Bononiae_, MDCCXXV.]
In regard to these four eclipses the ephemeris furnishes the following
data:
| 1728, | 1728, | 1729, | 1729,
| Feb. 24. | Aug. 19. | Feb. 13. | Aug. 8.
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Eclipse begins | 18^h 32^m | 4^h 07^m | 7^h 45^m | 12^h 02^m
Total immersion | -- -- | -- -- | 8 46 | 13 02
Middle of eclipse | 20 0 | 5 35 | 9 35 | 13 52
Emersion begins | -- -- | -- -- | 10 24 | 14 42
Eclipse ends | 21 29 | 7 03 | 11 25 | 15 42
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Digits eclipsed | 9 51 S.| 7 45 N.| 19 46 | 19 44 S.
Sun rises | 18 36 | -- -- | -- -- | -- --
Sun sets | -- -- | 6 49 | -- -- | -- --
Eclipse | Partial | Partial | Total | Total.
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Sun's declination | -9° 38' | +12° 42' | -13° 16' | +16° 09'
" hourly motion | + 0.9 | - 0.8 | + 0.8 | - 0.7
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
In this table the calendar is Gregorian, the time is apparent or true
sun time, the day is reckoned from noon and the hours are counted
continuously through the entire 24.
The present observatory in Bonn is in
Latitude 50° 43' 45" N.
Longitude 0^h 28^m 23^s E. from Greenwich.
At the date of the _first eclipse_ Bering was on his way across the
southern end of Kamchatka from Bolsheretsk to Lower Kamchatka. This
would make his position somewhere near latitude 55° N. and longitude
160° or 10^h 40^m E. from Greenwich.
He was therefore 10^h 12^m east of Bonn for which we have the elements
of this eclipse as computed by Manfred. With this data together with
the latitude and sun's declination we have the following data for the
eclipse in the region where Bering was.
Beginning of eclipse 4^h 44^m
Middle of eclipse 6 12
End of eclipse 7 41
Sun sets 5 07
This means that the sun set, bearing about W. by S. ½ S., and the moon
rose in partial eclipse, bearing about E. by N. ½ N., at 5^h 07^m after
apparent noon or 23 minutes after the eclipse had begun. The eclipse
lasted for 2^h 34^m after sunset, or until 7^h 41^m in the evening,
thus rendering observation of the last contact plainly visible.
At the date of the _second eclipse of 1728_, August 19, Bering was at
sea somewhere in the vicinity of the strait which bears his name.
Assuming his position to have been latitude 65° N. and longitude 188°
or 12^h 32^m E. from Greenwich, equal to 12^h 04^m E. from Bonn, and as
before taking the data from Manfred's ephemeris we have as follows:
Beginning of eclipse 16^h 11^m
Middle of eclipse 17 39
End of eclipse 19 07
Sun rises 16 04
It thus appears that the first contact of this partial eclipse of the
northern limb of the moon may have been just barely visible to Bering.
The moon bearing about SW. by W. was entering the earth's shadow about
five minutes before the sun's rising and its own setting. If much
importance attaches to determining the possibility to Bering of
observing this eclipse then a more precise calculation is needful.
At the date of the _first lunar eclipse of 1729_, February 13, Bering
was at Lower Kamchatka, in latitude 56° 03' N. and longitude 162° 15'
or 10^h 49^m E. from Greenwich equal to 10^h 21^m E. from Bonn. For
this place we have from Manfred:
Eclipse begins 18^h 06^m
Total immersion 19 07
Middle of eclipse 19 56
Emersion begins 20 45
Eclipse ends 21 46
----------
Sun rises 19^h 21^m
Thus it appears that this total and almost central eclipse of the moon
lasting 3^h 40^m began at Bering's station 1^h and 15^m before sunrise
of February 14, the total immersion occurring 14 minutes before
sunrise. It is manifest, therefore, that Bering might have observed
this eclipse.
The _second lunar eclipse of 1729_ occurred August 8, when Bering was
in or near Okhotsk and about returning to Europe. We may assume his
position to have been latitude 59° 20' N. and longitude 142° 40' or 9^h
31^m E. from Greenwich, equal to 9^h 03^m E. from Bonn. This eclipse
was also total and almost central, but at Bering's station was wholly
invisible, beginning at 9^h 05^m A.M. and ending at 12^h 45^m P.M.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The National Geographic Magazine, Vol.
II., No. 2, May, 1890, by Various
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAG., MAY 1890 ***
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