Note 175 — PART III. APPENDIX I. & II. CONTAINING SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNTS OF THE RUSSIAN DISCOVERIES, &c. &c.

Mr. Engel indeed pretends that lieutenant Laptieff, in 1739, doubled Tschukotskoi-Noss, because Gmelin says, that "he passed from the Kovyma to Anadirsk partly by water and partly by land." For Mr. Engel asserts the impossibility of getting from the Kovyma to Anadirsk, partly by land and partly by water, without going from the Kovyma to the mouth of the Anadyr by sea; and from thence to Anadirsk by land. But Mr. Muller (who has given a more particular account of the conclusion of this expedition) informs us, that Laptieff and his crew, after having wintered near the Indigirka, passed from its mouth in small boats to the Kovyma; and as it was dangerous, on account of the Tschutski, to follow the coast any farther, either by land or water, he went through the interior part of the country to Anadirsk, and from thence to the mouth of the Anadyr. Gmelin Reise, vol. II. p. 440. S. R. G. III. p. 157.

Mention is also made by Gmelin of a man who passed in a small boat from the Kovyma round Tschukotskoi-Noss into the sea of Kamtchatka: and Mr. Engel has not omitted to bring this passage in support of his system, with this difference, that he refers to the authority of Muller, instead of Gmelin, for the truth of the fact. But as we have no account of this expedition, and as the manner in which it is mentioned by Gmelin implies that he had it merely from tradition, we cannot lay any stress upon such vague and uncertain reports. The passage is as follows: "Es find so gar Spuren vorhanden, dass ein Kerl mit einem Schifflein, das nicht viel groesser als ein Schifferkahn gevesen, von Kolyma bis Tschukotskoi-Noss vorbey, und bis nach Kamtschatka gekommen sey." Gmelin Reise, II. p. 437. Mem. et Obs. Geog. &c. p. 10.