A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Mr Coxe, whose accurate researches into this subject give his opinion great
weight, is persuaded that the extremity of the Noss in question was never
passed but by Deshneff and his party, who sailed from the river Kovyma in
the year 1648, and are supposed to have got round it into the Anadir. As
the account of this expedition, the substance of which the reader will find
in Mr Coxe's Account of Russian Discoveries, contains no geographical
delineation of the coast along which they sailed, its position must be
conjectured from incidental circumstances; and from these it appears very
manifest, that the Tschukotskoi Noss of Deshneff is no other than the
promontory called by Captain Cook the East Cape. Speaking of the Noss, he
says, "One might sail from the isthmus to the river Anadir, with a fair
wind, in three days and three nights." This exactly coincides with the
situation of the East Cape, which is about one hundred and twenty leagues
from the mouth of the Anadir; and as there is no other isthmus to the
northward between that and the latitude of 69 deg., it is obvious that, by this
description, he must intend either the cape in question, or some other to
the southward of it. In another place he says, "Over against the isthmus
there are two islands in the sea, upon which were seen people of the
Tschutski nation, through whose lips were run pieces of the teeth of the
sea-horse." This again perfectly agrees with the two islands situated to
the S.E. of the East Cape. We saw indeed no inhabitants on them, but it is
not at all improbable that a party of the Americans from the opposite
continent, whom this description accurately suits, might, at that time,
have been accidentally there; and whom it was natural enough for him to
mistake for a tribe of the Tschutski.[25]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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