Peter_?
When the storm, which had separated the vessels, subsided, Chirikoff let
the _St. Paul_ drift in the hope that Bering might sight the missing
vessel. Then he steered southeast to latitude 48 degrees in search of
the commander; but on June 23 a council of officers decided it was a
waste of time to search longer, and ordered the vessel to be headed
northeastward. The wind was light; the water, clear; and Chirikoff knew,
from the pilot-birds following the vessel, from the water-logged trees
churning past, from the herds of seal floundering in the sea, that land
must lie in this direction. A bright lookout was kept for the first two
weeks of July. Two hundred and forty miles were traversed; and on a
calm, {46} clear night between the 13th and 15th of July, there loomed
above the horizon the dusky heights of a wooded mountainous land in
latitude 55 degrees 21 minutes. Chirikoff was in the Alexander
Archipelago. Daybreak came with the _St. Paul_ only four miles off the
conspicuous heights of Cape Addington. Chirikoff had discovered land
some thirty-six hours before Bering.
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