Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter VIII.
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utilization of its resources. He desired, among other things,
missionary work among the Yakuts, better discipline
among the East Siberian Cossacks, more honesty among
the yassak-collectors, the opening of iron mines at
Okhotsk and Udinsk, and various other things. But it
was never his intention to carry out these propositions
himself, and it was a great mistake for the government
to burden his instructions with such purely
administrative work.
His second proposition is incomparably more
interesting. In this he indicates the general outline of his
Great Northern Expedition, the greatest geographical
enterprise that the world has hitherto known. This
document shows that he was the originator of the plan,
something that has been contradicted, and but for this
document might still stand contradicted. He proposed
to start out from Kamchatka to explore and chart the
western coast of America and establish commercial
relations with that country, thence to visit Japan and
Amoor for the same purpose, and finally to chart either
by land or sea the Arctic coast of Siberia,—namely, from
the Obi to the Lena.[1] Through these three enterprises
and his former expedition, it was Bering’s object to fill
the vacant space on his chart between the known West
and the known East,—between the Kara Sea and the
Japan Islands. He refused to corroborate his first
observations by again visiting the same localities, and
he rightly concluded, that absolute proof of the
separation of the continents would be ascertained if the
American coast were charted.
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