C H A P .
X .
.July,
18- '6.
was the last view we had of Kamsehatka, as a thick fog came on, and
attended us to Beeriiig’s Island.
At day-light on the 10th a high rock was seen about nine miles
off, and shortly afterwards Beering’s Island appeared through the fog.
M"hen we had reached close in with the land the mist partially dispersed,
and exposed a moderately high island armed with rocky points
to our view. The snow rested in ridges upon the hills, but the lower
parts of the island were quite bare, and presented a green mossy appearance,
without a single shrub to relieve its monotony. Its dreary
aspect, associated with the recollection of the catastrophe that befel
Beering and his shipmates, wlio were cast upon its shores on the
approach of winter with their own resources e.vhausted, produced an
involuntary shudder. The bay in which this catastrophe occurred is on
the north side of the island, on a part of the coast which fortunately
afforded fresh wnter, and abounded in stone foxes, sea otters, and
moorhens ; and where there was a quantity of drift wood washed upon
the shore, which served for the construction of huts ; but notwithstanding
these resources, the commander, A"itus Beering, and twenty-
nine of the crew, found graves on this desolate spot. The island is now
visited occasionally by the Kussians for the skins of the sea otter and
black fox. The highest part of the island which we saw was towards
its N . Vi. extremity, from whence the shore slopes gradually to the
coast, and is terminated by cliffs. At the foot of these there are low
rocky flats, which can only be seen when quite close to them, and outside
again are breakers. Off the western point these reefs extend
about two miles from the shore, and off the northern, about a mile and
a quarter, so that on the whole it is a dangerous coast to approach in
thick weather. The rock first seen w'as situated five miles and a half
off shore, and was so crowded with seals basking upon it, that it was
immediately named Seal Rock *.
To the northward of this there were several small hays in the coast
which promised anchorage to such ships as should seek it, particularly
• Kotzebue observes in bis narrative tliat “ this rock has not been laid down in any
e lia r t: ” I presume he alludes to those which are modern, as on a re ference to the map of
Captain Kren itz en ’s discoveries in 1768, it will be found occupying its proper place.
one towards the eastern part of the indentation in the coast line, off C H A I
which there was a small low island or projecting point of land. This,
in all probability, is the harbour alluded to by Krenitzen, as there were
•Inly,
18 20.
near it “ two small hillocks like boats, with their keels upwards.”
We did not see the south-eastern part of this island, as it was obscured
by fog, but sailed along the southern and western shores as near as
circumstances permitted until seven in the evening, when we got out of
the region of clear weather, which usually obtains in the vicinity or to
leeward of land in these seas, and entered a thick fog. With the summer
characteristics of this latitude-fine weather and a thick fo g -w ^
advanced to the northward, attended by a great many birds, nearly all
of the same kind as those which inhabit the Greenland Sea, sheerwaters,
lummes, puffins, parasitic gulls, stormy petrel, dusky albatross, a larus
resembling the kittiwake, a small dove-coloured tern, and shags. In
latitude 60” 4T' N . we noticed a change in the colour of the water,
and on sounding found fifty-four fathoms, soft blue clay. From that
time until we took our final departure from this sea the bottom was
always within reach of our common lines. The water shoaled so
o-radually that at midnight on the l6th, after having run a hundred
and fifty miles, we had thirty-one fiithoms. Here the ground changed
from mud to sand, and apprized us of our approach to the Island
of St. Lawrence, which on the following morning was so close to us
that we could hear the surf upon the rocks. The fog was at the same
time so thick that we could not see the shore; and it was not until
some time afterwards, when we had neared the land by means of a
long ground swell, for it was quite calm, that we discerned the tops of
the hills.
It is a fortunate circumstance that the dangers in these seas are
not numerous, otherwise the prevalence of fogs in the summer time
would render the navigation extremely hazardous. About noon we
were enabled to see some little distance around us; and, as we expected,
the ship was close off the western extremity of St. Lawrence 1 sland. In
this situation the nearest hills, which were abont five hinidred feet above
the sea, were observed to be surmounted by large fragments of rock
having the appearance of ruins. These hills terminate to the southward