Description

In the summer of 1728, Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681‒1741) sailed in his first Pacific voyage along the Russian coast from Kamchatka to the Arctic Ocean through the waterway that subsequently became known as the Bering Strait. In his last major official act as tsar, in 1725 Peter the Great had commissioned this journey to determine if Asia and North America were connected by land. This book, the title of which includes the tsar’s basic question about a land bridge, summarized the history and results of this expedition. The ...