Bering's search for the Strait : the first Kamchatka expedition 1725-1730

"From 1725, when second-in-command Chirikov led a detachment of twenty-three men eastward from the Admiralty College courtyard in St. Petersburg, to five years later when Bering and his men returned to the capital, their expedition was plagued with difficulty - disease and starvation among the troops and a lack of cooperation from officials and citizens along the way. Nevertheless, Bering succeeded in obtaining a wealth of information on the land and people of Kamchatka. Indeed, the First Kamchatka Expedition was the first important scientific naval expedition in Russia. As a result of the expedition, Bering also claimed the existence of a strait between the two continents, although there was doubt in St. Petersburg about the validity of his assertion. [...] Much has been written about Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition in 1733-1742, when the Russians laid claim to Alaska, but this book is the first major work devoted wholly to the First Kamchatka Expedition."--Provided by the publisher.