With the early spring the camp at Merryweather Bay was broken up, and the exploring party turned their faces homeward. A journey of a couple of months, over much the same route as that followed on the way to the Pacific, brought them once more to the navigable portion of the Missouri, and, sailing down, they arrived at Fort Louis, at its junction with the Father of Waters, on the 22d May, 1806. Illustration: THE GIANTESS GEYSER OF YELLOWSTONE. CHAPTER XI. EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE NORTH-WEST COAST, AND THE WORK OF THE HUDSON’S BAY AND NORTH-WEST COMPANIES. TO bring our account of the course of discovery between the 30th and 60th parallels of north latitude down to the date of the return of Lewis and Clarke from their great expedition, we must join for a moment some explorers of yet another nationality, who, from the North, continued the work begun by the Spanish from the South, opening the way for the completion by Englishmen of the examination of the Pacific shore of America. Early in the eighteenth century, the Russians, though they had failed to round the most northern promontories of Asia, had penetrated to its eastern shores, and were thus brought nearer to America than any other European power. After the establishment of stations in Kamtschatka, the efforts of the Russian Government were directed to ascertaining whether the two great continents were or were not connected; and when this question was partially set at rest in 1728 by Behring, who reached the Asiatic side of the straits bearing his name, an expedition was at once fitted out under his command for sailing direct to the northern shores of America, and discovering if possible, the long sought passage. The story of the heroic struggle of Behring, and his melancholy death after his discovery of the Aleutian and other islands, with the adventures in the same latitudes of his comrade, Tchirikow, belongs to the history of Arctic exploration. We mention them here, however, as the openers of the north-western gate of the Pacific, their discoveries having greatly simplified the problems still to be solved between Cape Mendocino and the most southerly point reached by them. The news of the existence of navigable straits between America and Asia resulted in the turning of the attention of scientific men of Europe to the North-west, and the relinquishment for a short time of the efforts of navigators to reach the extreme North by way of Davis Strait and Baffin’s Bay. The great navigator Cook was the first to avail himself of the new passage. Not content with the splendid results achieved in his first two voyages, he determined to make yet another, and in his famous old ship, the _Resolution_, accompanied by Captain Clarke in the _Discovery_, he sailed from Plymouth for the third and last time on the 12th July, 1776. Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.