towering berg would sail down in perilous proximity, for
its touch would have sunk our skin boat like a stone. Once I thought it
was all over, when a floe we were on became detached from the main pack,
and there was barely time to regain the latter by quickly leaping from
one cake of ice to the other as the waves and current tore them apart.
It took us four hours to reach land, or rather the foot-ice securely
attached to it, and here, worn out after the tough struggle against the
forces of nature, every man took a much-needed rest. It was not until 7
A.M. on June 19 that our feet actually touched the soil of America, six
months to a day after our departure from the Gare du Nord, Paris.

Cape Prince of Wales is a rocky, precipitous promontory about 2000 ft.
high, which stands fully exposed to the furious winds, prevalent at all
times on this connecting link between Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
Why Bering Straits should be so known remains a mystery, for the
explorer of that name only sailed through them in the summer of 1728,
while Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack, practically discovered them in the
middle of the seventeenth century.[66] Captain Cook, of British fame,
who passed through the Straits in 1778, is said to be responsible for
the nomenclature, which seems rather an unjust one, but perhaps the
intrepid English navigator had never heard of Deschnev.

[Footnote 66: "On June 20, 1648, Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack trader,
sailed from the River Kolyma for the eastward to trade for ivory with
the Tchuktchis. His party sailed in three small shallops drawing but
little water. After a while the known waters behind them closed up with
floes, rendering a return to the Kolyma impossible, but the unknown
wastes ahead were open, and invited exploration. Hugging the coast,
Deschnev sailed through the Bering Straits, landing there in September.
He called the Siberian shore an isthmus, and described the Diomede
Islands, which he plainly saw. Although no mention is made by this party
of having seen the American continent, it was probably observed by them,
for Cape Prince of Wales can easily be seen on a clear day from the
Asiatic side. Deschnev's voyage was quite forgotten until discovered by
accident amongst some old records in 1774.

"Only in August, 1728, did Bering sail through here, going a short
distance into the Arctic Ocean, but returning without giving any sign of
the importance of the pass, or its nature, and believing, m