V. Short Account of the last Russian Expedition for making
Discoveries in the North-east Sea. By Professor Blu-
menbach at Gottingen. From Geographische Ephe-
meriden. Published by Major von Zach, May 1798.

As very little is yet publicly known of the great six-
years expedition, undertaken by the Russians for making
discoveries in the Northern Archipelago or Eastern Ocean,
the following short account of it, taken from the most
authentic sources, and particularly from the correspondence
of Dr. C.H. Merck, who was employed in the expedition
as naturalist and physician, with the Royal Academy of
Sciences at Gottingen, may afford satisfaction to those fond
of geographical researches.

This expedition was proposed by Catherine II. so early as
the month of November 1784. A plan was also drawn up
for it; and the command conferred upon Captain Billings
an Englishman, then in the naval service of Russia, who had
accompanied Mr. Bayly the astronomer in Cook’s last
voyage round the world in 1776–80. Three captains of
the second rank were appointed under him, viz. Hall,
Sarischef and Bering, not the son, as Lesseps says, but the
grandson of the celebrated Capt. Vitus Bering, who, on the
14th of December 1741, was interred on an island in the sea
of Kamtschatka, named after himself, and where he had
been shipwrecked.

The principal objects of this great and very expensive ex-
pedition were, to supply all the deficiencies in regard to the
important discoveries with which the geography of Asiatic
[Seite 142] Russia had been enriched, since the time of Peter the Great,
by exploring that so little known north-east corner of Asia,
the land of Tschukt; to pursue farther if possible the north-
east passage, attempted by Cook; and, lastly, to search out
more convenient posts for the Russian fur-trade on the north-
west coast of America.

Captain Billings set out with his instructions from Pe-
tersburgh in the end of the year 1785, and in July 1786
arrived at Ochotzk. Having passed the winter at Werchne
Ostrog, in the beginning of the summer 1787 he left the
mouth of the Kolyma or Kovyma with two vessels, the larger
of which, called the Pallas, was commanded by himself;
and the other, the Jesaschna, named after an arm of the
river Kovyma, in which it was built, was commanded by
Captain Sarischef. This was only a preparatory expedition,
the object of which, however, was nothing less than to
double Cape Tschelazka, (Cook’s Cape North) and to
proceed by this unheard-of route from the Frozen Ocean
through Bering’s Straits to Anadyr. I call the route unheard-
of, as the romantic voyage of the Starschina Cossac Semon
Deschnew, in the year 1648, notwithstanding the account
of it which the Russian historiographer Muller is said to
have discovered in 1736, among the archives at Jakutzk, is
still doubted by many sceptics, who consider a connexion of
the northern parts of both continents as possible.

These adventurous navigators, however, could not pro-
ceed farther than to a certain point between Baranikamen
and the mouth of the river Tschaun; because the impene-
trable fields of ice which they found there, rendered it im-
possible for them to continue their voyage to the North-east,
and obliged them to return from Seredun-Kerymsky Ostrog
to Jakutzk, in order to pass the winter.

In the mean time, Captains Hall and Bering were em-
ployed in preparations for the grand expedition. The former
superintended at Ochotzk the building of the two vessels
destined for that purpose, and the latter had the care of
[Seite 143] transporting from Jakutzk the materials and stores necessary
for sitting them out.

In the summer of 1789, the two ships were ready at
Ochotzk for putting to sea; when, unfortunately, the second
of them, the Dobrowa Namerine (the Good Intent), which
was to be commanded by Capt. Hall, got on shore just at
the mouth of the Ochochta; and as her keel was broken, it
was necessary to set her on fire. On account of this mis-
fortune, Capt. Billings, with his own vessel the Slawa Rossie
(Russian Glory), was not able to leave Ochotzk till towards
the middle of September; at which time he proceeded to
Awatscha Bay, where he anchored in the month of October,
having made in this passage a discovery of very great im-
portance to nautical geography, as about 300 wersts from
Ochotzk towards the Kurile islands, he fell in with a rock,
an hundred fathoms high and a werst in circumference,
surrounded by lesser rocks which were named Jonas Island,
and on which many of the ships already lost have, in all
probability, been wrecked. Prodigious flocks of sea-fowl
come every morning from these rocks to the coast of Ochotzk,
and return thither again in the evening to pass the night.

After wintering at Kamtschatka, these navigators explored,
in the summer of the year 1790, the whole chain of the
Aleutian islands, which seem to be of volcanic origin, and
afterwards the large eastern islands explored by Cook; Ona-
laschka and Kadjak; the bay of Cape St. Elias, etc. and re-
turned to winter at Kamtschatka. In the summer of 1791
they proceeded on their grand expedition, to search for a
northern passage through the Frozen Ocean; and having
landed on Gore’s and Clarke’s Island, pursued their route
from thence to the Continent of America.

As the fields of ice, which extend from the Eastern Cape
of America, rendered it impossible for them to penetrate any
farther, Captain Billings, in conjunction with Dr. Merck,
accompanied by one of the pilots, the draftsman, two inter-
preters, and four seamen, undertook an expedition of discovery
[Seite 144] through the country of Tschukt from the Bay of St. Lawrence to
the river Kolyma, which they had left four years before. This
wonderful journey, which they performed in sledges drawn
by rein-deer and attended by some of the intrepid natives,
continued from the middle of August till the end of February
1792, when they arrived at the river Angarka, which falls
into the great river of Anuy, after having travelled through,
and examined in regard to geography, natural history and
statistics, an extensive tract of country very little known,
the Bay of St. Laurence and the islands between Bering’s
Straits and the mouth of the Anadyr, inhabited by about
four thousand Tschuktese, who are ichthyophagi or feeders
on fish, and the whole almost level land, destitute of wood,
of the rein-deer Tschuktese from the above-mentioned straits
as far as the Kolyma.

In the beginning of May these enterprising travellers re-
turned on horseback to Jakutzk. Their vessel, which they
had left in the Bay of St. Laurence, had in the mean time
proceeded to Onalaschka, under the command of Capt.
Sarischef, and had wintered there, together with a small
cutter called the Tschorne Orel (the Black Eagle), which
had been built soon after their first arrival at Kamtschatka, to
supply the loss of the vessel stranded at Ochotzk, and on
board which were Captains Hall and Bering.

Next spring both vessels returned to Kamtschatka. The
Slawa Rossie was left there in the harbour of St. Peter and
St. Paul; but Captains Hall and Sarischef, in the course of
the summer, paid a visit in the Black Eagle to the chain of
the volcanic Kurile islands. They then proceeded to Ochotzk,
from which they were followed, in the summer of 1793, by
the rest of the crew of the Slawa Rossie in a transport com-
manded by Capt. Billings; and in the winter of 1794 the
whole of the persons employed in the expedition returned to
Petersburgh.

A full account of this remarkable and interesting expe-
dition is now preparing for publication, under the inspection
[Seite 145] of the Academy of Sciences at Petersburgh. In the mean
time, the Academical Museum at this place^*, through the
liberality of its worthy benefactor Baron von Asch, coun-
sellor of state, has received a present highly interesting to
natural history and geography, consisting of works of art and
natural curiosities from these remote regions of the northern
part of Asia, as well as of the north-west coast of America
and the chain of islands lying between the two continents.

The specimens of art of these polar inhabitants, and above
all the needle-work of the women, (who, however, for the
most part are troglodytes, and in their subterranean dwellings
(jurten), must consequently strain their eyes by working at
lamps filled with train oil,) exceed in elegance every thing
I ever saw of such kind of manufacture, not only among sa-
vages, but even among the civilised Europeans. As a proof
of this assertion, I shall here remark, that they stood exa-
mination by a magnifying glass, under which the finest
embroidery of Europe lost much by being compared with
them.

The assertion that, except food and drink, there is no ob-
ject which engages more the attention of mankind than that
of ornament, and that a turn for coquettery is one of the
most general as well as most beneficent principles in human
nature – an assertion strengthened by this striking observation,
that though there are numerous tribes on the earth who go
perfectly naked, even without so much as the covering of a
fig-leaf, there are none, as far as we yet know from the in-
formation of travellers, who, notwithstanding their nudity,
do not ornament themselves in some manner or other, I have
found fully confirmed by various articles, the fruits of this
voyage of discovery, which form part of the present trans-
mitted to our museum by Baron von Asch.

The variety and singularity of the appendages of the toi-
lette of these polar inhabitants, condemned as it were to the
[Seite 146] coldest climate in the world, and who have to struggle inces-
santly with frost and hunger, exceed all description. By way
of example, I shall mention only one article, a first-rate
ornament of the ladies of the Alieutian Islands, consisting of
a pair of the long tusks of a wild boar, cut down to a smaller
size, which are stuck into two holes, one on each side of the
under lip, from which they project, and give the wearer an
appearance similar to that of the wallrus, which is considered
as a beauty almost irresistible.