Note 91 — Chapter XIX · THE STAY ON BERING ISLAND.—FAUNA OF THE ISLAND.—A RICH FIELD FOR STELLER.—HIS DESCRIPTIONS IMMORTALIZE THE EXPEDITION.—THE SEA-COW.—ITS EXTERMINATION.—NORDENSKJÖLD REFUTED.—PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING.—SAD DEATH OF BERING.—AN ESTIMATE OF HIS WORK.—CHIRIKOFF'S RETURN.—THE CREW OF THE ST. PETER LEAVE THE ISLAND.—THE GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION DISCONTINUED.—BERING'S REPORTS BURIED IN RUSSIAN ARCHIVES.—BERING HONORED BY COOK.

These pits or earth huts lay in a direction from north to south. Next to Steller's hut was the miserable pit in which Vitus Bering, a hundred and forty-eight years ago, drew his last breath. August 30, 1882, Dr. Stejneger visited this place, of which he gives the following description in Deutsche Geographische Blätter, 1885, pp. 265-6: "I was first attracted to the ruins of the huts in which the shipwrecked crew passed a winter a hundred and forty-one years previous. On a projecting edge of the western slope of the mountain, in the northern corner of the valley, stands a large Greek cross. Tradition says that Bering was buried there. The present cross is of recent date. The old one, erected by the Russian company, was shattered by a storm, but the stump may still be seen. No one thought of erecting a new one, until Hr. von Grebnitski attended to the matter. Directly southeast of the cross, close to the edge of a steep declivity, about twenty feet high, lie the fairly well preserved ruins of the house. The walls are of peat, about three feet high and three feet thick. They were covered with a very luxuriant growth of grass, and, moreover, swarms of mosquitoes helped make investigation very unpleasant work. * * * The floor was covered with a thick turf, the removal of which was out of the question. I probed the whole surface with a bayonet, but nothing of significance was found. * * * A part of the crew were undoubtedly lodged in the sandpits under the barrow, of which Steller speaks. And in fact traces of the pits still exist, although they no longer have any definite form, being, moreover, so overgrown with vegetation that nothing could be ascertained from them. Some Arctic foxes had burrowed there. At our approach the whole brood came out, and in close proximity stood curiously gazing at us. Steller and his companions are gone, but the Arctic fox, which played them so many tricks, is still there. The pits, now merely an irregular heap of sand filled with burrows, lie close to the brook, where it curves sharply toward the west, cutting into the declivity on which the house stands."—Author's Note to American Edition.