On his
death, his empress and her successors, particularly Anne and Elizabeth,
contributed every thing in their power to carry his plan into full and
complete execution. They went from Archangel to the Ob, from the Ob to the
Jenesei. From the Jenesei they reached the Lena, partly by water and partly
by land; from the Lena they went to the eastward as far as the Judigirka:
and from Ochotsk they went by the Kurile Islands to Japan.
One of the most celebrated men engaged in the Russian discoveries in the
early part of the eighteenth century was Behring: he was a Dane by birth,
but in the service of Catherine, the widow of Peter the Great, who fixed
upon him to carry into execution one of the most favourite plans of her
husband. During Peter's residence in Holland, in the year 1717, the Dutch,
who were still disposed to believe that a passage might be discovered to
the East Indies in the northern parts of America, or Asia, urged the
Emperor to send out an expedition to determine this point. There was also
another point, less interesting indeed to commercial men, but on which
geographers had bestowed much labour, which it was stated to the Emperor
might be ascertained by the same expedition; this was, whether Asia and
America were united, or divided by a sea, towards their northern
extremities.
When Peter the Great returned to Russia, he resolved to attempt the
solution of these problems; and with his own hand drew up a set of
instructions for the proposed voyage; according to these, the vessels to be
employed were to be built in Kamschatka; the unknown coasts of Asia and
America were to be explored, and an accurate journal was to be kept.
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