side of Mareekan, in the latitude of 47-1/2 deg., where, as I have before
observed, the Russians have a settlement.

[Footnote 9: English translation, p. 83, 84.]

The second chart was to me the most interesting; for it comprehended
all the discoveries made by the Russians to the eastward of
Kamtschatka, toward America, which, if we exclude the voyage of
Beering and Tscherikoff, will amount to little or nothing. The part of
the American coast, with which the latter fell in, is marked in this
chart, between the latitude of 58 deg. and 58-1/2 deg., and 75 deg. of longitude
from Okotsk, or, 218-1/2 deg. from Greenwich; and the place where the
former anchored, in 59-1/2 deg. of latitude, and 63-1/2 deg. of longitude from
Okotsk, or 207 deg. 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