BERING (BEHRING),

See also:

• VITUS, ST (German, Veit; French, Guy)

VITUS (1680-1741)  , Danish navigator, was born in 168o at Horsens . In 1703 he entered the Russian navy, and served in the Swedish war . A series of explorations of the north coast of Asia, the outcome of a far-reaching plan devised by Peter the Great, led up to Bering's first voyage to Kamchatka . In 1725, under the auspices of the Russian government, he went overland to Okhotsk, crossed to Kamchatka, and built the ship " Gabriel." In her he pushed northward in 1728, until he could no longer observe any extension of the land to the north, or its appearance to the east . In the following year he made an abortive search for land eastward, and in 1730 returned to St Petersburg . He was subsequently commissioned to a further expedition, and in 1740 established the settlement of Petropavlosk in Kamchatka; and built two vessels, the " St Peter " and " St Paul," in which in 1741 he led an expedition towards America . A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island or in the vicinity . Bering was forced by adverse conditions to return quickly, and discovered some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back . He was afflicted with scurvy, and became too ill to command his ships, which were at last driven to refuge on an uninhabited island in the south-west of Bering Sea, where Bering himself and many of his company died . This island bears his name . Bering died on the 19th of December 1741 . It was long before the value of his work was recognized; but Captain Cook was able to prove his accuracy as an observer .

See G . F .

Muller, Sammlung russischer Geschichten, vol. iii . (St Petersburg, 1758); P . Lauridsen, Bering og de Russiske Opdagelsesrejser (Copenhagen, 1885) .