from Greenwich.  To say nothing of the longitude, which may be erroneous from many causes, the latitude of the coast, discovered by these two navigators, especially the part of it discovered by Tscherikoff, differs considerably from the account published by Mr Muller, and his chart.  Indeed, whether Muller’s chart, or this now produced by Mr Ismyloff, be most erroneous in this respect, it may be hard to determine, though it is not now a point worth discussing.  But the islands that lie dispersed between 52 deg. and 55 deg. of latitude, in the space between Kamtschatka and America, deserve some notice.  According to Mr Ismyloff’s account, neither the number nor the situation of these islands is well ascertained.  He struck out about one-third of them, assuring me they had no existence, and he altered the situation of others considerably, which, he said, was necessary, from his own observations.  And there was no reason to doubt about this.  As these islands lie all nearly under the same parallel, different navigators, being misled by their different reckonings, might easily mistake one island, or group of islands, for another, and fancy they had made a new discovery, when they had only found old ones in a different position from that assigned to them by their former visitors.

The islands of St Macarius, St Stephen, St Theodore, St Abraham, Seduction Island, and some others, which are to be found in Mr Muller’s chart, had no place in this now produced to us; nay, both Mr Ismyloff, and the others, assured me, that they had been several times sought for in vain.  And yet it is difficult to believe how Mr Muller, from whom subsequent map-makers have adopted them, could place them in this chart without some authority.  Relying, however, on the testimony of these people, whom I thought competent witnesses, I have left them out of my chart, and made such corrections amongst the other islands as I was told was necessary.  I found there was wanting another correction; for the difference of longitude, between the Bay of Awatska, and the harbour of Samganoodha, according to astronomical observations, made at these two places, is greater by five degrees and a half, than it is by the chart.  This error I have supposed to be infused throughout the whole, though it may not be so in reality.  There was also an error in the latitude of some places, but this hardly exceeded a quarter of a degree.

I shall now give some account of the islands, beginning with those that lie nearest to Kamtschatka, and reckoning the longitude from the harbour of Petropaulowska, in the Bay of Awatska.  The first is Beering’s Island, in 55 deg. of latitude, and 6 deg. of longitude.  Ten leagues from the south end of this, in the direction of E. by S., or E.S.E., lies Meidenoi Ostroff, or the Copper Island.  The next island is Atakou, laid down in 52 deg. 45’ of latitude, and in 15 deg. or 16 deg. of longitude.  This island is about eighteen leagues in extent, in the direction of E. and W., and seems to be the same land which Beering fell in with, and named Mount St John.  But there are no islands about it, except two inconsiderable ones, lying three or four leagues from the east end, in the direction of E.N.E.