and we have already shewn that they make mention of no remarkable promontory between the Kovyma and the Anadir, except the east cape.  Another circumstance, related by Deshneff, may, perhaps, be thought a further confirmation of this opinion, namely, that he met with no impediment from ice in navigating round the N.E. extremity of Asia; though, he adds, that this sea is not always so free from it, as indeed is manifest from the failure of his first expedition, and since that, from the unsuccessful attempts of Shalauroff, and the obstacles we met with, in two different years, in our present voyage.[27]

The continent left undetermined in our chart between Cape North, and the mouth of the Kovyma is, in longitudinal extent, one hundred and twenty-five leagues.  One-third, or about forty leagues, of this distance, from the Kovyma eastward, was explored in the year 1723, by a sinbo-jarskoi of Jakutz, whose name was Feodor Amossoff, by whom Mr Muller was informed, that its direction was to the eastward.  It is said to have been since accurately surveyed by Shalauroff, whose chart makes it trend to the N.E. by E., as far as the Shelatskoi Noss, which he places about forty-three leagues to the eastward of the Kovyma.  The space between this Noss and Cape North, about eighty-two leagues, is therefore the only part of the Russian empire that now remains unascertained.

But if the river Kovyma be erroneously situated with respect to its longitude, as well as in its latitude, a supposition for which probable grounds are not wanting, the extent of the unexplored coast will become proportionably diminished.  The reasons which incline me to believe that the mouth of this river is placed in the Russian charts much too far to the westward, are as follow:  First, because the accounts that are given of the navigation of the Frozen Sea from that river, round the N.E. point of Asia to the gulf of Anadir, do not accord with the supposed distance between those places.  Secondly, because the distance over land from the Kovyma to the Anadir is represented by the early Russian travellers as a journey easily performed, and of no very extraordinary length.  Thirdly, because the coast from the Shelatskoi Noss of Shalauroff[28] seems to trend directly S.E. to the East Cape.  If this be so, it will follow, that as we were probably not more than 1 deg. to the southward of Shelatskoi Noss, only sixty miles of the Asiatic coast remain unascertained.[29]

Had Captain Cook lived to this period of our voyage, and experienced, in a second attempt, the impracticability of a N.E. or N.W. passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, he would doubtless have laid before the public, in one connected view, an account of the obstacles which defeated this, the primary object of our expedition, together with his observations on a subject of such magnitude, and which had engaged the attention and divided the opinions of philosophers and navigators for upward of two hundred years.  I am very sensible how unequal I am to the task of supplying this deficiency; but that the expectations of the reader may not be wholly disappointed, I must beg his candid acceptance of the following observations, as well as of those I have already ventured to offer him, relative to the extent of the N.E. coast of Asia.