grees and 18 minutes of north latitude, and then returning reached Kamchatka on September 2, 1728. Thus was one portion of the great Peter's plan completed, for it was learned that Asia and America were not united. Later, the narrow strait separating the two great hemispheres was named in honor of the captain of this expedition.

In 1739 Martin Spangberg, who had been one of Bering's officers, and William Walton proved that the Okhotsk sea was an arm of the Pacific, by sailing through the Kurile chain of islands to Japan.

What is known to the Russians as the Great Expedition took place in 1741. Again Vitus Bering was in command. His vessel was the St. Peter. His chief lieutenant was Captain Alexei Cherikoff, who had been with him in the former expedition. This time he commanded a ship called St. Paul. They sailed from the Bay of Avatcha on June 4, 1741, and on June 21st the ships were separated in a gale. Cherikoff sailed eastward and sighted land at 56 degrees. He sent ten men in a boat to make examinations along the shore. They did not return. He sent six more after them. These shared a like fate. Cherikoff then hurried back to Kamchatka. He had lost twenty men and ac

complished but little of value.

On July 18, 1741, Bering sighted land at 60 degrees and saw a great snow-white mountain, and as it was the day of St. Elijah he called it St. Elias. Men went ashore on an island. Dr. G. W. Steller, the surgeon, wished to tarry long enough to gather herbs to cure the scurvy that had attacked the men, but the officers insisted on hurrying back. Many islands were noted, and in latitude 55 degrees and 30 minutes a group of ten islands was discovered. Here a sailor died and was given a sea burial, and as it was the first death in the party the group was named in honor of the sailor-Schumagin islands.

Many of the men, including the captain, were sick. The officers quarreled and confusion reigned. Approaching land in 55 degrees of latitude they decided to go into winter quarters on November 5, 1741. They landed and built huts of driftwood, and the frozen bodies of foxes, which were so little alarmed at their new visitors that they were easily killed with clubs. On November 10th the sick captain was brought ashore and lodged in a hut. On November 25th the St. Peter was blown ashore

and was a wreck, furnishing plenty of material for more huts and also for the structure of a boat in which the remnant of the party escaped to Kamchatka in the following spring. The sand caved down upon the sick captain's body. They dug it away, but the captain begged them to leave it so, as it was warmer. On December 8th he died and his men dug him out of the sand pit to give him decent burial. Thirty of the crew died and were buried there. To this day that granite island, rearing its bleak head from the Northern sea, bears the grave and name of that great commander. The Russians, to further honor him, have named the group of islands there Commandorski.

The life and guiding spirit of this shattered expedition was Dr. G. W. Steller. In the hour of trial he was physician and commander. He kept the records of the expedition, and when the remnant escaped he informed the world of the discovery on that island of four great beasts new to science. These were the sea-cow (Rytima gigas), now extinct; sea-bear or fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), one of the world's greatest fur producers; sealion (Eumetopias stelleri); sea-dog (Enhydra lutris)—this is the sea otter, whose beautiful coat often brings as high as $500. This noted scientist, who did so much for the expedition that discovered Alaska, was not honored by the naming for him of the smallest island. In later years Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, of the Smithsonian Institution, sought to repair this unfair oversight. He named the principal hill on Bering island "Steller Mountain." A great natural stone arch on the island he named "Steller's Triumphal Arch."

The furs brought home by this party were of such great value that there was a boom in fur hunting. Swarms of men pushed out along the "Fox" or Aleutian islands. They often embarked in boats that were mere boxes fastened together with leather thongs in the absence of metal fastenings. As late as 1806 Krusenstern reports that one-third of all such vessels were lost each year.

Two voyages of discovery were made in the years 1766 and 1767 by Lieutenant Synd, but nothing is known of them, as all information was completely suppressed by Empress Catherine II.

Captains Krenitzin and Levaschef sailed to the Aleutian islands in 1768 and passed the winter there. Krenitzin was

drowned. Shipwreck, attacks from natives and other misfortunes were encountered. Though intended as a geographical expedition, about the only good accomplished was the collection. of information about the fur trade.

In 1771 Count Maurice de Benyowsky, a Hungarian, placed himself at the head of a party of Poles, political prisoners in Siberia, and overpowered a Russian garrison at Bolschevetsh and put to sea. They were driven north to 66 degrees and were the first to see land on both sides of the straits. Returning, they visited the Aleutian islands and brought up at Canton, China, thus being the first to sail from Siberia to a port visited by Europeans.

When the Cossacks advanced across Siberia there preceded them a free-booting advance guard, reckless of all law, whom the Russians called promyshleniki. They were among the earliest on the Fox islands, and soon surmised that the fur seals had breeding grounds to the north, for they observed each year herds of seals going in that direction, and later they returned, accompanied by many young seals. This surmise was strengthened by an Aleut tradition, commemorated in a native song, that a young chieftain had wandered away from his home at Unimak in his canoe and had drifted to Amik, the home of the seal. When the furs became scarce on the other islands search was

begun for Amik. In 1786 Master Gerassim Pribilof joined in that search, and after toilsome voyaging he found an island which he named after his vessel, St. George. He sent hunters ashore and hastened back to throw others off his course. On June 29, 1787, his men discovered another island, which they named after the saints of the day St. Peter and St. Paul. It is now known as St. Paul. Thus were discovered the famous Pribilof islands. Shelikof, in a letter dated at Okhotsh, 1789, stated that the first year's catch on the newly discovered islands included 40,000 fur seals, 2,000 sea otters, 14,400 pounds of walrus ivory and more whalebone than the ship could carry.

Then there appears the Russian fur monopoly, and on August 18, 1790, Alexander Andreivich Baranoff became its manager. He ruled an autocrat in Alaska for three decades. He said: "My first steps into these regions were attended with misfortune, but perhaps I shall be permitted to conquer in the end. I will either vanquish a cruel fate or fall under its repeated blows."