Ocean.  The surveys which were made during this voyage, may justly be said to have rendered perfect the geography of that part of the north-west coast of America to which it extended, and indeed to have completed the whole geography of this coast, which, from the multitude of its creeks, inlets, islands, &c., presents formidable as well as petty and troublesome difficulties in the way of its accurate and complete survey.  Captain Vancouver, however, was extremely fortunate in the weather which attended him during the whole of the three summers which he spent on this coast.

Upwards of twenty years elapsed after the voyage of Vancouver, before another attempt was made to find out a passage from the north Pacific into the Atlantic Ocean.  This attempt proceeded from Russia:  not however from the government, but an individual.  Count Romanzoff, a Russian nobleman, is well known for his liberal and judicious encouragement of every thing which can promote useful knowledge, especially in what relates to the improvement and benefit of his country.  His first design was to fit out an expedition to explore the north-west passage by Hudson’s Bay or Davis’ Straits; but learning that the British government were making preparations to attempt it by that route, he changed his plan, and resolved to fit out an expedition to attempt the discovery of a passage from the eastward.

A ship was accordingly built and equipped, and the command given to Lieutenant Kotzebue.  He sailed from Russia in the autumn of 1815, and on the 19th of June in the following year he reached Kamschatka.  This he left on the 15th of July and on the 20th of that month, Behring’s Islands were seen to the northward of Cape Prince of Wales.  A tract of low land was ascertained to be an island about seven miles long, and a mile across, in the widest part:  beyond it was a deep inlet running eastward into the continent.  Lieutenant Kotzebue, animated and encouraged by this appearance, proceeded in a northerly direction, and found that the land continued low, and tended more to the eastwards.  On the 1st of August the entrance into a broad inlet was discovered, into which the current ran very rapidly.  The opening of this inlet was known before, and is indeed laid down in the charts attached to Marchand’s Voyage round the World; but Kotzebue is certainly the first person who explained it.  As it was perfectly calm when he reached this inlet, he resolved to go on shore, and examine from some eminence the direction of the coast.  “We landed,” he observes, “without difficulty, near a hill, which I immediately ascended; from the summit I could no where perceive land in the strait:  the high mountains to the north either formed islands, or were a coast by themselves; for that the two coasts could not be connected together was evident, even from the very great difference between this very low and that remarkably high land.  It was my intention to continue the survey of the coast in the boats, but a number of baydares coming to us