, he met the
Russian polar expedition. From Jakutzk to this place he travelled four
hundred miles, without meeting a single human being. At the fair held at
Tchutski, whither he next directed his steps, he received much information
respecting the northeast of Asia. He ascertained the existence of this
cape; all doubts, he says, being now solved, not by calculation, but by
ocular demonstration. Its latitude and longitude, are well ascertained: he
places this cape half a degree more to the northward than Baron Wrangel;
but it is doubtful whether he himself reached it, and if he did, whether he
had the means of fixing its latitude, or whether he depends entirely on the
information he received at the fair of Tchutski. His expressions, in a
letter to the President of the Royal Society, are, "No land is considered
to exist to the northward of it. The east side of the Noss is composed of
bold and perpendicular cliffs, while the west side exhibits gradual
declivities; the whole most sterile, but presenting an awfully magnificent
appearance." From the fair he seems to have returned to Kolyma, and thence
proceeded to Okotsk, a dangerous, difficult, and fatiguing journey of three
thousand versts, a great part performed on foot, in seventy days. From this
last place he proceeded to Kamschatka, where it is supposed he was obliged
to terminate his investigations, in consequence of an order or intimation
from the Russian government not to proceed further.
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