About The Middle Of The Seventeenth
Century, They Ascertained That The Frozen Ocean Washed And Bounded The
North Of Asia:
The first Russian ship sailed down the river Lena to this
sea in the year 1636.
Three years afterwards, by pushing their conquests
from one river to another, and from one rude and wandering tribe to
another, they reached the eastern shores of Asia, not far distant from the
present site of Ochotsk. Their conquests in this direction had occupied
them nearly sixty years; and in this time they had annexed to their empire
more than a fourth part of the globe, extending nearly eighty degrees in
length, and in the north reaching to the 160 deg. of east longitude; in breadth
their conquests extended from the fiftieth to the seventy-fifth degree of
north latitude. This conquest was completed by a Cossack; another Cossack,
as Malte Brun observes, effected what the most skilful and enterprising of
subsequent navigators have in vain attempted. Guided by the winds, and
following the course of the tides, the current and the ice, he doubled the
extremity of Asia from Kowyma to the river Anadyn. Kamschatcka, however,
which is their principal settlement in the east of Asia, was not discovered
till the year 1690; five years afterwards they reached it by sea from
Ochotsk, but for a long time it was thought to be an island. The Kurile
Islands were not discovered till the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The direction of discovery to this part of the world, as well as the plan
by which it might be most advantageously and successfully executed, was
given by Peter the Great, and affords one proof, that his mind was
capacious, though his manners, morals, and conduct, might be those of a
half-civilized tyrant.
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