the south.  The inference drawn by Kotzebue is as follows:  “The constant north-east direction of the current in Behring’s Straits, proves that the water meets with no opposition, and consequently a passage must exist, though perhaps not adapted to navigation.  Observations have long been made, that the current in Baffin’s Bay runs to the south; and thus no doubt can remain that the mass of water which flows into Behring’s Straits takes its course round America, and returns through Baffin’s Bay into the Ocean.”

In 1819 the Russian government sent out another expedition, whose object was to trace the continent of America to the northward and eastward.  In July, 1820, they reached Behring’s Straits, and were supposed to have passed them in that year; in the winter they returned to some of the Russian settlements on the coast of America:  what they have since done or discovered is not known.

Such is the result of what has hitherto been discovered by sea, with respect to the contiguity of Asia and America, the northern parts of these continents, and the probability of a passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Very lately some attempts have been made to reach the north-eastern extremity of Asia by land.  “In February, 1821, Baron Wrangel, an officer of great merit and of considerable science, left his head-quarters in the Nishney Kolyma, to settle by astronomical observations the position of Shatatzkoi Noss, or the North-east Cape of Asia, which he found to lie in latitude 70 deg. 5’ north, considerably lower than it is usually placed in the maps.  Having crossed this point, he undertook the hazardous enterprize of crossing the ice of the Polar Sea, on sledges drawn by dogs, in search of the land said to have been discovered in 1762 to the northward of the Kolyma, He travelled directly north eighty miles, without perceiving any thing but a field of interminable ice, the surface of which had now become so broken and uneven, as to prevent a further prosecution of his journey.  He had gone far enough, however, to ascertain that no such land had ever been discovered.” (Quarterly Review, No.  LII. p. 342.)

Another attempt, still more extraordinary and hazardous, has lately been made to explore the north-east of Asia, and particularly to determine whether the two continents of Asia and America do not unite at the North-east Cape, or in some other point.  This enterprize was undertaken by Henry Dundas Cochrane, a commander in the British navy; who received assurances from the Russian government that he should not be molested on his journey; that he should receive any assistance, protection, and facilities he should require; and that he might join an expedition sent by the Russian government toward the Pole, if he should meet it, and accompany it as far as he might be inclined.  He left Petersburgh in the beginning of the summer of 1820, and in one hundred and twenty-three days reached the Baikal, having traversed eight thousand versts