"At that time I visited M. de l'Isle. I was a witness of his geographical labors as far as they had new discoveries for their object. I acted as interpreter to M. Bering in the conversations which he had with him; and I can assert positively that when M. de l'Isle began that chart the second expedition was already ordered, and Captain Bering, knowing what was still wanting to his discoveries, offered to continue them and his lieutenants with him, and they received promotion in consequence." Lauridsen says: "On January 5, 1732, the Senate gave him leave of absence to go to St. Petersburg.... Almost simultaneously he was promoted, in regular {218} succession, to the position of captain-commander in the Russian fleet, the next position below that of rear-admiral." This indicates that the expedition was decided on at least as early as January 5, 1732; possibly earlier. Fortunately we are not left to inference, for elsewhere the Russian officer says: "Mr. de l'Isle 'throws discredit on our discoveries by leaving on his chart the fictitious land of Gama, which, in order to avoid conflicting with our accounts, he places (in 1752) a little more to the west and south than he did on his chart of 1732.'" This definitely fixes the year in which de l'Isle presented the map to the Senate. We learn, however, from Lauridsen that "as early as April 17 (1732) the Empress ordered that Bering's proposition should be executed, and charged the Senate to take the necessary steps for that purpose.... On May 2 it [_i.e._, the Senate] promulgated two ukases, in which it declared the objects of the expedition and sought to indicate the necessary means." It is very improbable that, in the case of so dilatory a man as de l'Isle, this chart could have been elaborated and drawn, the memoir written, a report made by the Academy to the Senate, and action be taken in the fifteen days which elapsed between the order for the chart and Bering's instructions. It is possible that the chart was drawn at the end of 1731, and that de l'Isle, for obvious reasons, gave it the earliest possible date. In giving an account of Bering's provisions, as Dall says, every historian has followed a mutilated, if not garbled, paragraph from Bering's original report. The excerpts from Brooke's translation of du Halde, which was followed in Campbell's edition of Harris' Voyages, are as follows: "The provisions consisted of carrots for want of corn [= grain or wheat], the fat of fish, uncured, served instead of butter, and salt fish supplied the place of all other meats." "Fish oil was his butter and dried fish his beef and pork. Salt he was obliged to get from the sea; ... he distilled spirits from 'sweet straw.'"