e in contact with the Chinese, and
a new method of reaching Cathay was thus obtained, while geography
gained the knowledge of the extent of Northern Asia. For, about
the same time (in 1648), the Arctic Ocean was reached on the north
shores of Siberia, and a fleet under the Cossack Dishinef sailed
from Kolyma and reached as far as the straits known by the name
of Behring. It was not, however, till fifty years afterwards, in
1696, that the Russians reached Kamtschatka.

Notwithstanding the access of knowledge which had been gained by
these successive bold pushes towards north and east, it still remained
uncertain whether Siberia did not join on to the northern part of
the New World discovered by Columbus and Amerigo, and in 1728 Peter
the Great sent out an expedition under VITUS BEHRING, a Dane in the
Russian service, with the express aim of ascertaining this point.
He reached Kamtschatka, and there built two vessels as directed by
the Czar, and started on his voyage northward, coasting along the
land. When he reached a little beyond 67 deg. N., he found no land
to the north or east, and conceived he had reached the end of the
continent. As a matter of fact, he was within thirty miles of the
west coast of America; but of this he does not seem to have been
aware, being content with solving the special problem put before
him by the Czar. The strait thus discovered by Behring, though not
known by him to be a strait, has ever since been known by his name.
In 1741, however, Behring again set out on a voyage of discovery to
ascertain how far to the east America was, and within a fortnight
had come within sight of the lofty mountain named by him Mount
St. Elias. Behring himself died upon this voyage, on an island
also named after him; he had at last solved the relation between
the Old and the New Worlds.

These voyages of Behring, however, belong to a much later stage
of discovery than those we have hitherto been treating for the
last three chapters. His explorations were undertaken mainly for
scientific purposes, and to solve a scientific problem, whereas
all the other researches of Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch
were directed to one end, that of reaching the Spice Islands and
Cathay. The Portuguese at first started out on the search by the
slow method of creeping down the coast of Africa; the Spanish, by
adopting Columbus's bold idea, had attempted it by the western
route, and under Magellan's still bolder concepti