the Kamtchatka river about an hundred and eighty verfts
below Upper Kamtchatkoi Oftrogv At the time of the
firft expedition to Kamtchatka, in 1697, the remains of
two villages ftill fubfilled, which had probably been inhabited
by Fedotoff and his companions : and no one
knew which way they came into the peninfula, until it
was difcovered from the archives of Yakutfk in 1-636.”
* No other navigator, fubfequent to Delhneff, has ever
pretended to have paffed the North Eaftern extremity of
~ Alia*,
* Mr. Engel indeed pretends that lieutenant Laptieff; m i 73-9, doubled
Tfchukotlkoi-Nofs, becaufe Gmelin. fays, that “ he paffed from the
“ Kovyma to Anadirsk partly by water and partly by land.” For Mr.
Engel afferts the impoffibility o f getting from the Kovyma to. Anadirsk-,.
partly by land and partly by water, without going from the Kovyma to
the mouth o f the Anadyr by fe a j and from, thence to-Anadirsk by. land.
But Mr. Muller (who has given a more particular account o f the conclulion
o f this expedition) informs us, that Laptieff and his crew, after- having
wintered near the Indigirka, paffed from its mouth in fmall boats to the
Kovyma; and as it was dangerous, on account o f the Tfchutski, to follow
the coaft any farther, either by land or water, he went through the
interior part o f the country to Anadirsk, and from thence to the mouth
o f the Anadyr. Gmelin Reife, vol. II. p.440. S. R. G. III. p .15 7.
Mention- is alfo made by Gmelin o f a man who paffed in a fmall
boat .from the Kovyma round Tfchukotskoi-Nofs into the lea o f Kamtchatka
: and Mr. Engel has not omitted to bring this paflage in fupport
o f his fyftem, with this difference, that he refers to. the authority- of
Muller, inftead o f Gmelin, for the truth o f the fadt. But as we have
no account o f this expedition, and as the manner in which it is mentioned
by Gmelin implies that he had it merely from tradition,, we cannot lay any
ftrefs.