His First Design Was To Fit Out An Expedition
To Explore The North-West Passage By Hudson's Bay Or Davis'
Straits; but
learning that the British government were making preparations to attempt it
by that route, he changed his plan,
And resolved to fit out an expedition
to attempt the discovery of a passage from the eastward.
A ship was accordingly built and equipped, and the command given to
Lieutenant Kotzebue. He sailed from Russia in the autumn of 1815, and on
the 19th of June in the following year he reached Kamschatka. This he left
on the 15th of July and on the 20th of that month, Behring's Islands were
seen to the northward of Cape Prince of Wales. A tract of low land was
ascertained to be an island about seven miles long, and a mile across, in
the widest part: beyond it was a deep inlet running eastward into the
continent. Lieutenant Kotzebue, animated and encouraged by this appearance,
proceeded in a northerly direction, and found that the land continued low,
and tended more to the eastwards. On the 1st of August the entrance into a
broad inlet was discovered, into which the current ran very rapidly. The
opening of this inlet was known before, and is indeed laid down in the
charts attached to Marchand's Voyage round the World; but Kotzebue is
certainly the first person who explained it. As it was perfectly calm when
he reached this inlet, he resolved to go on shore, and examine from some
eminence the direction of the coast.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 676 of 1007
Words from 184842 to 185100
of 273188
