Given in Loving Memory of Raymond Braislin Montgomery Scientist, R/V Atlantis maiden voyage 2 July - 26 August 1931 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Physical Oceanographer 1940-1949 Non-Resident Staff 1950-1960 Visiting Committee 1962-1963 Corporation Member 1970-1980 Faculty, New York University 1940-1944 Faculty, Brown University 1949-1954 Faculty, Johns Hopkins University 1954-1961 Professor of Oceanography, Johns Hopkins University 1961-1975 ^^ BERING'S VOYAGES VOLUME II *-v AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY V RESEARCH SERIES NO. 2 VV. L. G. JoERG, Editor BERING'S VOYAGES ^f^ An Account of the Efforts of the Russians to Determine the Relation of Asia and America BY F. A. GOLDER IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II: Steller's Journal of the Sea Voyage from Kamchatka to America and Return on the Second Expedition 1741-1742 TRANSLATED AND IN PART ANNOTATED lY LEONHARD STEJNEGER RAmCAL^OCIETY BiCu0^3l^i^DWiK' AT STI^ET ^ LABOHATCRY Re^ iSRARY WOODS HOLE, MASS. W. H. 0. I. COPYRIGHT, 1925 BY THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK Reprinted 1935 DOUGLAS C. MCMURTRIE NEW YORK Reprinted from plates by the LORD BALTIMORE PRESS, BALTIMORE, MD. CONTENTS PAGE Preface vii Biographical Note on Steller i Steller 's Journal of the Sea Voyage from Kamchatka TO America and Return 9 Appendix A: Steller 's Description of Bering Island 189 Appendix B: Steller 's Letter to Gmelin About the Voyage 242 Bibliography 251 Index to Both Volumes 267 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. Page 1 Reduced facsimile of fol. 15 of IMS copy of Steller's journal 38 2 Facsimile of corresponding page from published version of Steller's journal, as edited by Pallas 39 3 Khitrov's sketch map of St. Elias (Kayak) Island, 1 741 . 42 4 Modern map of Kayak Island 43 5 Kayak Island from the southeast facing 44 6 Cape St. Elias and Pinnacle Rock from the west . facing 44 7 Western shore of south-central Kayak Island from the west facing 44 8 Rock fall on western shore of Kayak Island . facing 45 9 Mouth of a creek on western shore of Kayak Island, pre- sumably at the spot where Steller landed on July 20 (O. S.), 1741 facing 45 10 The same spot closer by facing 45 11 A Yakut palma, or knife 47 12 Khitrov's sketch map of the Shumagin Islands, 1741 . 76 13 Modern map of the Shumagin Islands 76 14 Map of the North Pacific region by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, 1758, incorporating the results of Bering's two expeditions and illustrating the concep- tion of the time facing loi 15 Map of the track of the St. Peter on approaching Bering Island, as reconstructed by L. Stejneger 130 16 Site at Komandor Bay, Bering Island, where the ship- wrecked expedition wintered facing 158 17 Relics of Bering's second expedition recovered from Bering Island facing 159 8 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. Page 1 Facsimile of page from published version of Steller's jour- nal to illustrate editorial changes from the MS by Pallas 164 19 Reduced facsimile of (approximately corresponding) fol. 76 of MS copy of Steller's journal 165 20 Reduced facsimile of fol. 77 of MS copy of Steller's journal 166 21 Sketch of Copper Island seen from Bering Island .... 175 22 The harbor of Petropavlovsk seen from the north . facing 186 23 The monument to Bering in Petropavlovsk .... facing 186 24 Mt. Steller, the highest mountain on Bering Island . facing 194 25 Cape Manati, the southeastern cape of Bering Island facing 195 26 Steller's Arch, on western shore of Bering Island . facing 195 27 Yushin's \'alley on western shore of the southern end of Bering Island facing 202 28 Steller makes the first measurement of a sea cow, Bering Island, July 12 (O. S.), 1742 facing 228 29 Representation of a fur seal, a sea lion, and a sea cow on the copy of Waxel's chart of the voyage (in the Czar's library at Tsarskoe Selo in 189 1) facing 229 30 Facsimile of Steller's handwriting, from the end of his letter to Gmelin of November 4 (O. S.), 1742 248 Pi. I Photograph of a manuscript map prepared by Joseph Nicolas Delisle in 1731 to show for Bering's impending expedition what was then known of the relation of east- ern Asia to America (from the archives of the Service Hydrographlque de la Marine, Paris) facing 72 II Map of Bering Island by Leonhard Stejneger, based mainly on the author's surveys in 1882-83 and reduced, with slight changes and additions in names, from Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., Vol 16. i8g6. Fl.lV .... facing 208 PREFACE Scholars will be ever grateful to Bering for persuading Steller to go with him on the St. Peter. Steller's account of his experiences is the most interesting of all the papers that have come down to us. The naval officers* log books contain the dry facts of the voyage, but Steller's journal gives the spirit of it, the "inside" story, the moral forces at work. The two records supplement each other, sometimes even in matters of navigation, and that is one reason why they are published together. There are still other reasons. Steller was the first trained naturalist in the North Pacific, and he had opportunities for observation that were denied to his successors. He was the only scientist who saw a live sea cow. He studied the habits of the blue fox and the sea otter before they were frightened away by man. In all that relates to these animals as well as on other phases of natural history which he records, Steller was, is, and will be an authority. Steller's journal, which is in German, his native language, was edited and published at St. Petersburg in 1793 by the naturalist P. S. Pallas, both serially in Volumes 5 and 6 of his Neiie Nordische Beytrdge and separately in booklet form (see the bibliography at the end of the present volume). Steller's description of Bering Island, which constitutes the end of the journal, Pallas had already published in 1781 in Volume 2 of the same series. During the summer of 191 7 I located in the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Petrograd a manuscript copy of the journal. It seems probable that it is a direct transcript from the original. Pallas received the original in 1767 (or 1769), so he tells us in his two prefaces,^ from Professor J. E. Fischer, one of the Academicians who took part in Bering's expedi- tion in Siberia, and had it copied. That the manuscript I ^ Neue Nordische Beytrdge, Vol. 2, 1781, p, 256 ("einer andern kleinen Handschrift desselben [Steller], welche ich noch im Jahr 1767 nach der mir vom seligen Professor Fischer mitgetheilten Urschrift copiren Hess"); ibid., Vol. 5, 1793, p. 131, or book form, p. 3 ("Dieses merkwurdige viii PREFACE found is not the original seems apparent for two reasons: (i) it is not in Steller's handwriting, as a comparison with that handwriting^ will show; (2) it does not lack the sheet containing the account of the happenings from August 4 to 11, 1 741, nor is the sheet mutilated on which are described the events of September 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, and 24—defects which character- ized the original, Pallas says,^ when it was in his hands. That the present manuscript is also not the transcript made for Pallas from the original seems probable because it shows no trace of his many editorial changes or corrections, signs of which may plausibly be expected to have been evident on that transcript. On the other hand, that the manuscript is a direct copy from the original seems highly probable from the fact that, in the cor- responding places, it is practically identical, word for word, with certain passages which J. B. Scherer quoted from the journal when he published Steller's " Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka" in 1774.^ In a review of the book in 1775 Tagebuch . ist mir im J. 1769 von dem seeligen Professor der Geschichte Herrn Fischer . im Original mitgetheilt und eine Abschrift davon zu nehmen erlaubt worden"). The two prefaces are translated below as footnotes at the beginning of the description of Bering Island (footnote i on pp. 189-190) and of the journal (p. 9, footnote 2) respectively. 2 Facsimile of portion of Steller's letter of November 4. 1742, to Gmelin, below, p. 248. Compare with specimen pages from manuscript also reproduced below (pp. 38, 165, 166). 3 Neue Nordische Beytrdge, Vol. 5, 1793, footnotes on pp. 174 and 206 (translated below, in the journal, as asterisk footnotes following footnotes 132 and 248 respectively). * The following parallel passages from the manuscript, Scherer, and Pallas are typical and may serve as an example. MS Scherer Pallas die Ursache ist, dass wir die Ursache ist, dass wir Die Ursache ist, weil wahrender Zeit bey be- wahrender Zeit bey man, bey bestandig standig favorablen \Vin- bestandig favorablem gunstigem Wind und de und Wetter nur imer Winde und Wetter nur Wetter nur immer fort- fortliefen. Himmel und immer fortliefen. Him- lief, nichts als Himmel Wasser sahen, particu- mel und Wasser sahen, und Wasser sahe und las exclamandi und ad- particulas exclamandi von den Officieren nur mirandi von den Her- und admirandi von den Ausrufungen und Be- ren Officiren horeten. HerrenSee-Officiershor- wunderungsausdriicke (fol. 8) ten. hdrte: (prefatory life of Stel- {N. N. B., Vol. 5. P- ler, p. lo) 147; or book, p. 19) — IDENTIFICATION OF MS ix Beckmann sa^'s^ that Scherer lived for several years in St.