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Furthermore, as has already been said, Bering was
not aware of the fact that he was sailing in a
comparatively narrow sound,—in that strait which has carried
his name to posterity. He saw nothing beyond the
nearest of the Diomede Islands, that is to say, the
middle of the strait; and this island, as we have seen,
is mentioned in the journal and on the chart, with the
latitude correctly given.[1] His name was not
immediately associated with these regions. The first place, so
far as I am able to ascertain, that the name Bering
Strait appears, is on a map which accompanies Rob. de
Vangondie’s “Memoire sur les pays de l’Asie,” Paris,
1774. But it is especially to Captain Cook’s
high-mindedness that the name was retained, for it was used in
his great work. Later, Reinholdt Forster, who
characterizes Bering as “a meritorious and truly great
navigator,” triumphantly fought his cause against Büsching
and others.[2]
But even at the present time, an interesting
misunderstanding attaches to this part of Bering’s history and the
cartography of these regions. In our Arctic literature
and on all our polar maps, it is asserted that Vitus Bering,
on his first voyage, turned back at Cape Serdze Kamen.
That such a supposition has been able to maintain itself,
only shows how little the original sources of his history
are known in West Europe, and how unheeded they have
been in Russia. About a hundred years ago the Danish
Admiral De Löwenörn and the English hydrographer A.
Dalrymple showed that Frobisher Strait had by some
ignorant hand been located on the east coast of Greenland,
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