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indifferent to Bering and the discussion of his claims. Far from it.
It has rather been that in invading the Bering world their
disposition has led them to view the solid ground on which he made his
mark, rather than the clouds hovering above, and which this work
dissipates. It is rather of that character of ignorance——if so strong
a word is justifiable——that is found here in the persistent misspelling
of the great explorer’s name and the bodies of water which have
transmitted it to posterity so well, although the authority——really
the absolute demand, if correctness is desired——for the change
from Behring to Bering has been well known to exist for a number
of years, and is now adopted in even our best elementary
geographies. While the animalish axiom that “ignorance is bliss” is
probably never true, there may be cases where it is apparently
fortunate, and this may be so in that Americans in being
seemingly apathetic have really escaped a discussion which after all has
ended in placing the man considered in about the same status that
they always assumed he had filled. One might argue that it would
have been better for Americans, therefore, if they had been
presented with a simple and authentic biography of the immortal
Danish-Russian, rather than with a book that is both a biography
and a defense, but Lauridsen’s work after all is the best, I think all
will agree, as no biography of Bering could be complete without
some account of that part in which he had no making and no
share, as well as that better part which he chronicled with his
own brain and brawn.
I doubt yet if Americans will take very much interest in the
dispute over Bering’s simple claims in which he could take no
part; but that this book, which settles them so clearly, will be
welcomed by the reading classes of a nation that by acquisition in
Alaska has brought them so near the field of the labor of Bering,
I think there need not be the slightest fear. It is one of the most
important links yet welded by the wisdom of man which can be
made into a chain of history for our new acquisition whose history
is yet so imperfect, and will remain so, until Russian archives are
placed in the hands of those they consider fair-minded judges,
as in the present work.
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