to Asia was Schestakov's companion, the
surveyor Gvosdev. He crossed Behring's Straits to the American side
as early as 1730 (_Mueller_, iii. p. 131), and therefore ought
properly to be considered as the discoverer of this sound. The
north-westernmost part of America, Behring's Straits and the islands
situated in it, are besides shown in Strahlenberg's map, which was
made at least a decade before Gvosdev's voyage. There north-western
America is delineated as a large island, inhabited by a tribe, the
_Pucho-chotski_, who lived in a constant state of warfare with the
_Giuchieghi_, who inhabited the islands in the sound. Wrangel Land
is also shown in this remarkable map. In 1767, eleven years before
Cook's voyage in the Polar Sea, the American side of Behring's
Straits was also visited by Lieut. SYND with a Russian expedition,
that started from Okotsk in 1764. In the short account of the voyage
which is to be found in William Coxe's, _Account of the Russian
Discoveries, &c._, London, 1780, p. 300, it is said expressly that
Synd considered the coast on which he landed to belong to America.
On Synd's map, published by Coxe, the north part of the Behring Sea
is enriched with a number of fictitious islands (St. Agaphonis, St.
Myronis, St. Titi, St. Samuels, and St. Andreae). As Synd, according
to Sarytchev in the work quoted below, p. 11, made the voyage in a
boat, it is probable that by these names islands were indicated
which lay quite close to the coast and were not so far from land as
shown in the map, besides, the mountain-summits on St. Lawrence
Island, which are separated by extensive low lands, may perhaps have
been taken for separate islands. ]

[Footnote 338: Billings' voyage is described in Martin Sauer's
_Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the
Northern Parts of Asia, &c., by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London,
1802, and Gavrila Sarychev's _Achtjaehrige Reise im noerdlichen
Siberien, auf dem Eismeere und dem nordoestlichen Ocean. Aus dem
Russischen uebersetzt von J.H. Busse_, Leipzig, 1805-1806. As
interesting to our Swedish readers it may be mentioned that the
Russian hunter Prybilov informed Sauer that a Swedish brigantine,
_Merkur_, coppered, carrying sixteen cannon, commanded by J.H.
Coxe, in 1788, cruised in the Behring Sea in order to destroy the
Russian settlements there. They however, according to Prybilov's
statement to Sauer, "did no damage, because they saw that we had
nothing wor