In the centre of the arc of this grand crescent-range is the superb body and hoary crest of Mount St Elias, which is, save Mount Wrangel, now known to be the loftiest peak on the North American coast; the latter is slightly higher. Triangulated from a base line in Yakootat, in 1874, by one[35] of the most accomplished mathematicians of the U. S. Coast Survey, the summit of that royal mountain was determined to be more than nineteen thousand feet above the level of the tide at the observer’s feet. It was under the shadow of this “bolshoi sopka” that Bering first saw the Continent of North America on the 18th of July, 1741, and undoubtedly he discerned it from a long distance, ere his boat landed. Two days before anchoring, he records the fact that “the country had terrible high mountains, which were covered with snow.” When he finally landed (it was St. Elias’ day), near a point that he named as he named the lofty central peak, Cape St. Elias, he found the temporary summer-houses of a band of natives; those people themselves had fled in terror from an unwonted invasion, but the Russians soon had reason to regret their subsequent better understanding. After the storm which parted Bering, early in June, from the company of the second vessel of his expedition, he had hoped to fall in with her ever afterward, and while eagerly scanning the coast and horizon about him for some sign of his lost comrades, the hand of fate caused him to turn to the northward, when, had his helm been set south, he would have met the object of his search. For the other vessel, the _St. Paul_, had proceeded on its solitary course, and anxiously sought the commander, until it, too, had sighted this same coast, three days earlier than had its storm-separated consort. Tschericov came to anchor off some distance from “steep and rocky cliffs”[36] in “lat. 56°,” July 15. Weary and expectant, the captain sent his mate with the long-boat and a crew of ten or twelve of his best men away to the shore for the purpose of inquiry and for a fresh supply of water. The ship’s boat disappeared behind the point sheltering a small wooded inlet; it and its men were never seen again by their shipmates. Troubled in mind, but thinking that the surf, perhaps, had stove the boat in landing, the captain sent his boatswain in the dingy with five men and two carpenters, all well armed, to furnish the necessary assistance. The small boat disappeared also, and it, too, was never seen again. At the same time a great smoke was constantly ascending from the shore. Shortly afterward two huge canoes, filled with painted, yelling savages, paddled out from the recesses of the bay, and lying at some distance from the ship, all howled, in standing chorus, “Agai—agai!” then, flourishing their rude arms, they rapidly returned to the shore. Sorrowfully the disturbed and distressed Tschericov turned his ship’s course about and hurried home,[37] not knowing the fate of his men, unable to help them, and,