Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XII.
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the last, he found himself in a narrow strait, from ten to
twenty yards wide, and he did not stop until there was
scarcely a bucketful of water between the polar ice and
the rocky shore. But Cape Schelagskii, on the northeast
coast, where Deshneff a century before had shown the
way, he did not succeed in doubling.
As a result of the labors of this great Northern
Expedition, the northern coast of the Old World
got substantially the same cartographical outline that
it now has. The determinations of latitude made by
the Russian officers were very accurate, but those of
longitude, based on nautical calculations, were not so
satisfactory. Their successors, Wrangell, Anjou,
Middendorff, and even Nordenskjöld, have therefore found
opportunity to make corrections of but minor
importance, especially in regard to longitude.
But it is necessary to dwell a little longer on
these expeditions. Their principal object was not so
much the charting of northern Siberia as the
discovery and navigation of the Northeast passage.
From this point of view alone they must be
considered. This is the connecting thought, the central
point in these scattered labors. They were an
indirect continuation of the West European expeditions
for the same purpose, but far more rational than
these. For this reason Bering had, on his
expedition of reconnoissance (1725-30), first sought that
thoroughfare between the two hemispheres without
which a Northeast and a Northwest passage could
not exist. For this reason also he had, on his
farsighted plan, undertaken the navigation of the Arctic
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