journey with loaded rein-deer; on which account, it is added,
their day's journey was but very small. It is impossible to conclude much
from so vague an account; but, as the distance between the east cape and
the ostrog is upward of two hundred leagues in a straight line, and
therefore may be supposed to allow twelve or fifteen miles a day, its
situation cannot be reckoned incompatible with Popoff's calculation. The
next circumstance mentioned in this deposition is, that their route lay by
the foot of a rock called Matkol, situated at the bottom of a great gulf.
This gulf Muller supposes to be the bay he had laid down between latitude
66 deg. and 72 deg.; and accordingly places the rock Matkol in the centre of it;
but it appears equally probable, even if we had not so many reasons to
doubt the existence of that bay, that it might be some part of the gulf of
Anadir, which they would undoubtedly touch upon in their road from the
ostrog to the east cape.

But what seems to put this matter beyond all dispute, and to prove that the
cape visited by Popoff cannot be to the northward of 69 deg. latitude, is, that
part of his deposition, which I have already quoted, relative to the island
lying off the Noss, from whence the opposite continent might be seen. For
as the two continents in latitude 69 deg., have diverged so far as to be more
than three hundred miles distant, it is highly improbable that the Asiatic
coast should again trend in such a manner to the eastward, as to come
nearly within sight of the coast of America.

If these arguments should be deemed conclusive against the existence of the
peninsula of the Tschutski, as laid down by Muller, it will follow that the
east cape is the Tschukotskoi Noss of the[26] more early Russian
navigators; and, consequently, that the undescribed coast from the latitude
of 69 deg. to the mouth of the river Kovyma, must uniformly trend more or less
to the westward. As an additional proof of this, it may be remarked, that
the Tschukotskoi Noss is always represented as dividing the sea of Kovyma
from that of Anadir, which could not be the case, if any considerable cape
had projected to the N.E. in the higher latitudes. Thus, in the depositions
taken at Anadirsk, it is related, "that opposite the Noss, on both sides,
as well in the sea of Kovyma, as in that of Anadir, an island is said to be
seen at a great distance, which the Tschutski call a large country; and say
that people dwell there