The letter and its author are worth some attention at our hands. As has been said, it was published anonymously, and I do not know that its authorship has ever been traced. It appears from the letter that the writer was an officer of the Russian navy; that he was a Russian; that he was on familiar terms with both Bering and de l'Isle; that he acted as interpreter between them in 1730-1731; that he was with Bering in his last voyage to America, and was one of the ship-wrecked mariners on Bering island, and that on his return to St. Petersburg he was charged with the compilations from the various ship journals. As the naval officer states he was with Bering on Bering island, it is evident that it must have been either Swen Waxel, Sophron Chitrow, or Steller, the well-known scientific professor serving with Bering's expedition. It could not have been Steller, since the professor was a German, and moreover he died in November, 1746, prior to the date of the letter. It is improbable that it was Chitrow, who was originally in a subordinate position as a master-of-fleet, but while serving in Kamshatka and prior to Bering's second voyage was made a lieutenant. It is not likely that a subordinate of Chitrow's position should have been so situated in St. Petersburg as to have served as an interpreter between Bering and de l'Isle. It is therefore more than probable that Lieutenant Swen Waxel was the author of the letter. In further confirmation, this officer says that he is charged with the preparation of a chart out of the material furnished by the maps and journals of the separate vessels. As we know from other sources, Waxel later made a chart of the Kamschatka region. Waxel displayed great energy and excellent judgment in conducting affairs on Bering island, both before and after Bering's death, and it is gratifying to note his intellectual discrimination in dealing with de l'Isle's fictitious account of a journey in America said to have been made by one Admiral de Fonte. Waxel skilfully dissects this geographical invention, clearly proving its inconsistencies, while geographical writers in England were engaged years later in endeavoring to prove its truthfulness. {223} It is significant that although Waxel omits any reference to it, the following paragraph, which is evidently intended to be exculpatory of Bering's turning back at the most northerly point of his first voyage, forms part of Bering's report as translated by Dall: "Neither from the Chukchi coast nor to the eastward could any extension of the land be observed." This very important sentence does not appear in du Halde's account, and evidently was not in the copy which was furnished him. Possibly the person who furnished the copy to du Halde omitted it. Elsewhere Waxel adds: "I say nothing here which I have not repeatedly heard M. Bering say. I also saw his instructions."