In
August they are in Bristol Bay, north of the Aleutians, directly
opposite Asia. Here Dr. Anderson, the surgeon, dies of consumption.
Not so much fog now. They can follow the mainland. Far ahead there
projects straight out in the sea a long spit of land backed by high
hills, the westernmost point of North America--Cape Prince of Wales!
Bering is vindicated! Just fifty years from Bering's exploration of
1728, the English navigator finds what Bering found: that America and
Asia are _not_ united; that no Northeast Passage exists; that no great
oceanic body lies north of New Spain; that Alaska--as the Russian maps
had it after Bering's death--is not an island.
Wind, rain, roily, shoaly seas breaking clear over the ship across
decks drove Cook out from land to deeper water. With an Englishman's
thoroughness for doing things and to make deadly sure just how the two
continents lay to each other, Cook now scuds across Bering Strait
thirty-nine miles to the Chukchee land of Siberia in Asia. How he
praises the accuracy of poor {194} Bering's work along this coast:
Bering, whose name had been a target for ridicule and contempt from the
time of his death; whose death was declared a blunder; whose voyage was
considered a failure; whose charts had been rejected and distorted by
the learned men of the world.
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