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 accounts, or rather Deshneff’s,[1] of the distance between the Noss, and the river Anadir, cannot be reconciled with this very northerly position.  But as I hope to visit these parts again, I shall leave the discussion of this point till then.  In the mean time, I must conclude, as Beering did before me, that this is the most eastern point of Asia.  It is a peninsula of considerable height, joined to the continent by a very low, and, to appearance, narrow neck of land.  It shews a steep rocky clift next the sea, and off the very point are some rocks like spires.  It is situated in the latitude of 66 deg. 6’, and in the longitude of 190 deg. 22’, and is distant from Cape Prince of Wales, on the American coast, thirteen leagues, in the direction of N., 53 deg.  W. The land about this promontory is composed of hills and vallies.  The former terminate at the sea in steep rocky points, and the latter in low shores.  The hills seemed to be naked rocks; but the vallies had a greenish hue, but destitute of tree or shrub.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Avec le vent le plus favorable, on peut aller par mer de cette pointe (des Tschukotschis), jusqu’ a l’Anadir en trois fois 24 heures; et par terre le chemin ne peut guere etre plus long.—­Muller, p. 13.—­D.]

[Footnote 2:  Deshnef’s voyage in 1648, is considered the only one previous to this of Cook, in which the north-eastern extremity of Asia was doubled.  Some account of it is given in Coxe’s work.  Others have pretended to this achievement, but there is not evidence to warrant belief of the fact.  Beering, indeed, in 1728, got as far north as 67 deg. 18’; but as he immediately returned, and made no progress on the Asiatic coast, he is not entitled to this merit, although the extent of his discovery, as to the separation of the two continents, has procured him the honour of giving a name to the Strait which divides them.—­E.]