stward of it, the
coast is high and bold; but to the westward it is low, and trends
N.N.W., and N.W. by W., which is nearly its direction all the way
to Cape North. The soundings are every where the same at the same
distance from the shore, which is also the case on the opposite
shore of America. The greatest depth we found in ranging along it
was twenty-three fathoms. And, in the night, or in foggy weather, the
soundings are no bad guide in sailing along either of these shores.

At eight o'clock in the morning of the 2d, the most advanced land
to the S.E., bore S., 25 deg. E., and from this point of view had the
appearance of being an island. But the thick snow showers, which
succeeded one another pretty, fast, and settled upon the land, hid
great part of the coast at this time from our sight. Soon after, the
sun, whose face we had not seen for near five days, broke out at the
intervals between the showers, and, in some measure, freed the coast
from the fog, so that we had a sight of it, and found the whole to be
connected. The wind still continued at north, the air was cold, and
the mercury in the thermometer never rose above 35 deg., and was sometimes
as low as 30 deg.. At noon the observed latitude was 66 deg. 37', Cape Serdze
Kamen bore N., 52 deg. W., thirteen leagues distant; the southernmost
point of land in sight S., 41 deg. E., the nearest part of the coast two
leagues distant, and our depth of water twenty-two fathoms.

We had now fair weather and sunshine, and as we ranged along
the coast, at the distance of four miles, we saw several of the
inhabitants, and some of their habitations, which looked like little
hillocks of earth. In the evening we passed the _Eastern Cape_, or the
point above mentioned, from which the coast changes its direction, and
trends S.W. It is the same point of land which we had passed on the
11th of August. They who believed implicitly in Mr Staehlin's map, then
thought it the east point of his island Alaschka; but we had, by
this time, satisfied ourselves, that it is no other than the eastern
promontory of Asia, and probably the proper _Tschukotskoi Noss_,
though the promontory, to which Beering gave that name, is farther to
the S.W.

Though Mr Muller, in his map of the Russian Discoveries, places the
Tschukotskoi Noss nearly in 75 deg. of latitude, and extends it somewhat
to the eastward of this cape, it appears to me, that he had no
good authority for so doing. Indeed, his own a