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We may possibly feel inclined to blame Bering for
his haste. Why did he not cruise about in the region
of 65° to 67° north latitude? A few hours’ sailing would
have brought him to the American coast. This
objection may, however, prove to be illegitimate. The
geographical explorer, as well as every other investigator,
has a right to be judged from the standpoint of his
times, and on the basis of his own premises. Bering
had no apprehension of an adjacent continent, partly
on account of the Koriak interpreter’s imperfect
knowledge of the Chukchee tongue, partly as a result of the
fact that the knowledge of the times concerning
the western coast of America was very meager. This
knowledge extended no farther than to 43° north
latitude,—to Cape Blanco in California; hence, in the
nature of things, he could not be expected to search
for land which presumably he knew nothing of. But
here we must also take into consideration his poor
equipment. His cables, ropes, and sails were in such
bad condition, after the three years’ transport through
Siberia, that he could not weather a storm, and his
stock of provisions was running so low that it put an
unpleasant check on any inclination to overreach his
main object, and this, as we have seen, did not include
the exploration of an American coast, if separated from
Asia. To explore a new coast thirteen degrees of
latitude and thirty degrees of longitude in extent, and make
such a chart of it that its outline is comparatively
correct, and which, for a long time, was far superior to
anything made afterward,[1] ought certainly to be considered
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