Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter III.
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in this case. The northwestern part of America wholly
disappeared from the cartography of the seventeenth
century, and through the influence of Witsen’s and Homann’s
later maps it became customary to represent the eastern
coast of Asia by a meridian passing a little east of Yakutsk,
without any suggestions whatever in regard to its strongly
marked peninsulas or to an adjacent western continent.
But even these representations were originally Russian,
and are undoubtedly due to the first original Russian
atlas, published by Remesoff. They finally gave way to
the geographical explorations of the eighteenth century,
which began shortly after the accession of Peter the
Great, having been provoked by political events and
conditions.
By the treaty of Nertchinsk in 1689 the Yablonoi
Mountains were established as the boundary line between
Russia and China. By this means the way to the fertile
lands of Amoor was barred to that indurate caste of
Russian hussars and Cossacks who had conquered for the
White Czar the vast tracts of Siberia. A second time
they fell upon northeastern Siberia, pressing their way, as
before, across uninhabited tundras along the northern
ocean, and thence conquered the inhabited districts
toward the south. They discovered the island of
Liakhov, penetrated the country of the Chukchees, Koriaks,
and Kamshadales, and at the Anadyr River, in Deshneff’s
old palisaded fort, they found that point of support from
which they maintained Russia’s power in the extreme
northeast. In this way the Russians learned the enormous
extent of the country; but as they had no exact locations,
they formed a very incorrect opinion of its outlines, and
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