Читать книгу Eastbound through Siberia - Georg Wilhelm Steller - Страница 11
ОглавлениеINSTRUCTIONS FOR GEORG WILHELM STELLER FROM FEBRUARY 18, 1739, FROM YENISEYSK
Johann Georg Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller
IN THE HANDWRITING OF ALEKSEI GORLANOV, SIGNED BY Johann Georg Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller; in Quellen 3:71–93 (translated from the Russian)
Instructions
Provided by the professors of the Academy of Sciences, Gerhard Friedrich Müller and Johann Georg Gmelin, to the adjunct of the Academy of Sciences, Georg Wilhelm Steller:
In accordance with Her Imperial Majesty’s ukase from the High Governing Senate and the decision of the Academy of Sciences, you were assigned to the Kamchatka Expedition. By that Academy of Sciences, you were issued instructions signed by Her Imperial Majesty’s Kammerherr1 and president of the Academy of Sciences, Baron von Korff, in which you were ordered to describe all things pertaining to natural history, to assist us in all matters after you arrived here, and to be guided by our determinations in everything. For these reasons we have decided to send you to Okhotsk and to Kamchatka and to issue you these instructions you are to follow unconditionally.
1.From here you will travel with your present party via Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Okhotsk to Kamchatka and will investigate and describe—en route as well as on Kamchatka—everything concerning natural as well as political history, and in all places where it seems appropriate you will carry out meteorological observations and those concerning the nature of the earth. All this is recorded in our instructions, copies of which were provided to you on your departure from St. Petersburg. You will always act as befits a faithful servant of Her Imperial Majesty.
2.To your party will be assigned the painter Johann Christian Berckhan to draw and paint everything noteworthy in natural and political history; the student Aleksei Gorlanov to assist you with your observations, especially with those concerning geography and political history, and with the correspondence with the government offices; the prospector Grigorei Samoilov to look for ores; the huntsman Dmitrei Giliashev to shoot animals and birds [for the scientific collections]; and the Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi to interpret in the Yakut language and communicate with other native peoples and interview them about their faith, customs, and way of life, for which Klimovskoi has the necessary skills, having gained several years’ experience. He is also to pay the progon money [Russian (R), money collected per kilometer traveled].
3.You will receive from the Yeniseysk Provincial Administration the progon money—from here to Irkutsk via Taseevskoi Ostrog, Kanskoi Ostrog, and Udinskoi Ostrog—for eleven podvodi [R, for-hire, government-sponsored wagons with horses or, in winter, sleds pulled by horses or dogs], namely, four podvodi for you, three for the painter, one for the student, one for the prospector and his instruments, one for the huntsman and the Yakutsk sluzhiv, and one for the books, instruments, and materials belonging to the Crown. The Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi shall enter the progon money into the Schnurbuch [literally, string book, a ledger with a registered number of pages through which a string has been drawn and its ends sealed, issued by government offices to travelers on official business to record expenses and receipts; WH, Glossar; Quellen 1:331], which the Yeniseysk Provincial Administration will hand over together with the progon money. The book and what is left of the money shall be delivered to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration when you arrive in Irkutsk.
4.You shall make great haste traveling to Irkutsk so that you can still use the winter route. You shall order the student Gorlanov to describe the geography along the route you are traveling.
5.Once you arrive in Irkutsk, you will inform the Irkutsk Provincial Administration in writing about your plans for carrying out the assigned journey and demand assistance in making it all happen. You are going to demand that pay authorized by Her Imperial Majesty be set aside for you and your party up to the beginning of the coming year, 1740. For this year, 1739, you have received your pay until August 8, so you are to receive it for five more months. The other members of your party received only a third of their pay here in Yeniseysk and thus have yet to receive two-thirds in Irkutsk. The prospector Samoilov was allotted a food allowance equal to a soldier’s ration. He received that until March of this year. The huntsman Giliashev and the Yakutsk sluzhiv were each authorized sluzhivs’ rations. But they have not received theirs for this year 1739, so their rations have to be requisitioned in Irkutsk.
6.From the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, you will requisition three Irkutsk sluzhivs as escorts to assist you with the necessary shipments and with everything else necessary for your assigned observations. You will incorporate these sluzhivs into your party. You will also demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue a ukase in the name of Her Imperial Majesty authorizing the exchange of these sluzhivs in Yakutsk and Okhotsk for sluzhivs from there.
7.To shoot birds and animals, you will be given nine pounds of the Crown’s gunpowder from the amount we received in Irkutsk in 1735. You will demand eighteen pounds of lead from the Irkutsk Provincial Administration since we do not have any to spare. When you leave for Okhotsk, you may add some of both gunpowder and lead from the supply we left in Yakutsk together with other Crown supplies. But you will not hand over all the gunpowder and lead to your huntsman but will give him what he needs in each instance depending on whether he uses the flintlock musket or the rifle, so that the supply is controlled and he does not use gunpowder or lead unnecessarily.
8.You will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration provide information about the provisions they promised to set aside for us and our retinue in Okhotsk, and that the administration order as many of those provisions as needed to be handed over to you and your party. A ukase of Her Imperial Majesty, issued on February 13, 1733, by the High Governing Senate, states that if our and our retinue’s personal supply of provisions somewhere should not be sufficient and there were none to be purchased, then if foodstuffs belonging to the Crown were available from local warehouses, they should, as long as necessary, be issued at cost. Concerning this we have repeatedly written to the High Governing Senate, requesting that the provisions in Okhotsk and Kamchatka be sold to us at cost and the transportation be paid out of Crown funds. Since we were quite confident that a favorable decision would be forthcoming, we demanded that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration see to it that the provisions required by us and our retinue are made ready for us in Okhotsk and sold to us at cost. In case the Irkutsk Provincial Administration has already begun to transport these provisions, you will see to it that everything is carried out carefully and speedily according to the ukases and decrees. In Okhotsk you will then accept as many provisions as needed by you and your party. If, however, the transport of those provisions has not yet occurred, then you must demand that at least as many provisions as needed by you and your party for two and a half years be transported immediately to Okhotsk; the amount is to be calculated so that each person receives 864 pounds per year. You will receive exact copies of the entire correspondence up to now so that you know what exactly we wrote to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration concerning the transport of provisions and what response we received from that administration.
9.In 1737 the student Stepan Krasheninnikov was dispatched by us to Kamchatka to carry out a variety of investigations and to collect all kinds of oddities. On his departure from Yakutsk, he took with him provisions for two years, 1737 and 1738. Last year, in 1738, according to our request and the decision of the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, the student should have been sent provisions for the current year, 1739. Up until your departure for Kamchatka, you are to make sure that he is annually sent the necessary provisions and that provisions for him for two and a half years are added to those required by you and your party. You will especially see to it that this year, 1739, the student Krasheninnikov is sent provisions for the year 1740, since according to a report sent by him from Kamchatka, a significant part of the provisions he took with him was jettisoned during the voyage. To keep you informed to the fullest extent, exact copies of the relevant request submitted to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and of the ukases sent to Yakutsk and Okhotsk are attached. [According to document 26, following these instructions in Quellen 3:94–95, Steller received a total of 161 sheets of document copies—no wonder he needed an extra podvoda to transport all the papers, books, and materials.]
10. During your stay in Irkutsk, you will take a look at the instruments for meteorological observations that we left behind to see if they are still in good condition. And you will ascertain if the sluzhiv Nikita Kanaev, who was charged with keeping a written record of those observations, is properly fulfilling his duties. In case those instruments have been damaged in some way, you will restore them to their original condition. In case that sluzhiv is negligent in the performance of his duties, you will inform the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and demand that the administration hold him to fulfilling his duties in every respect.
11. In Irkutsk you will inquire about the health of the assistant miner Michailo Mel’nikov, whom we had to leave behind because of illness. When we left Irkutsk, we demanded that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration return Mel’nikov to our command when he recovered. We received word from the caravan physician who had been staying in town at the time and to whose care we had entrusted Mel’nikov that after our departure he was feeling considerably better and would shortly be fully recovered from this disease. Subsequently we have, however, not received another word from him. For this reason, if you should see that Mel’nikov can be sent on his journey, you will send him to us as quickly as possible and require the Irkutsk Provincial Administration, in accordance with our earlier request, to give Mel’nikov a podvoda and the progon money for it.
12. For the journey from Irkutsk to Yakutsk, you will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration outfit you at the docks of the upper Lena with a doshchenik [R, flat-bottomed, single-decked, one-masted cargo vessel, rowed with up to ten long oars; term retained.] with the necessary rigging, provisions, and crew. But if, contrary to expectations, the Irkutsk Provincial Administration refuses because, they say, there are no doshcheniks at the docks on the upper Lena, then you will travel either on kaiuki [R, cargo boats on Siberian rivers, small doshcheniks; WH, Glossar; Quellen 2:442] or on rafts to Kirenskoi Ostrog. Before leaving Irkutsk, you need to insist that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration send a ukase of Her Imperial Majesty’s to the prikazchik [R, chief administrator of a village or of a district consisting of more widely scattered ostrogs or settlements; WH, Glossar; Quellen 3:444], or whoever is in command in Kirenskoi Ostrog, ordering that the best of the three doshcheniks we left behind in that ostrog be repaired and made ready for your journey.
13. So that in the future you and the members of your party will have no problems receiving Her Imperial Majesty’s pay in Yakutsk, in Okhotsk, or on Kamchatka, you shall demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue a ukase of Her Imperial Majesty’s to the Yakutsk Administration and the commander of Okhotsk. In that ukase the amount of pay is to be listed separately for you and each member of your party so that orders may be issued to set aside that amount of pay at the beginning of each year. It shall also be indicated from which income the pay is to be taken so that everything is clear. To ensure reliability you should personally receive such a ukase from the Irkutsk Provincial Administration and take it with you unsealed, or you should demand the Irkutsk Provincial Administration give you a duplicate or an exact copy.
14. You will demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration issue you a Geleitukase [literally, escort pass; a sample found in Quellen 3:278–79] of Her Imperial Majesty’s to all commanders, ordering that you unconditionally be given everything you demand for carrying out the investigations you have been charged with. In case you need workers or artisans for these investigations, they are to be given you. Promyshlenniks and inozemtsy2 from whom you may need to gather certain information shall likewise be found and sent to you, and wherever you demand it, interpreters of the languages spoken by those people shall be sent to you. In that ukase it shall also be stated that the Yakutsk sluzhiv Fedot Klimovskoi, whom we are assigning to you, is to remain with you during the entire journey to Kamchatka and back to Yakutsk to serve as interpreter of the Yakut language as well as to assist you in gathering oral information from various peoples since he has experience in these things.
You are to be granted help everywhere in securing what is needed to expedite, assist, and assure the safety of your journey. In case you want to travel somewhere on the water, you are to be provided with suitable vessels including all the rigging and provisions as well as workers; if traveling on land, you are to be given podvodi as well as progon money for them: four podvodi for you, three podvodi for the painter Berckhan, one podvoda for the student Gorlanov, one for the prospector, and one for the huntsman Giliashev and the sluzhiv Klimovskoi to share. For the journey from Yakutsk to Okhotsk, however, each may be given his own podvoda, and then an additional one for the books, instruments, and Crown materials, as well as one podvoda for the three sluzhivs assigned as escorts and expediters. Both on land and water, you are to be provided with knowledgeable people as guides and, if the route traverses dangerous areas, a sufficient number of guards.
On the strength of Her Imperial Majesty’s ukase and in accordance with the rules of the Academy of Sciences, the pay is to be handed out in advance at the beginning of each year: 660 rubles to you, 500 rubles to the painter Berckhan, 100 rubles to the student Gorlanov, to the prospector Samoilov 36 rubles as well as the allotted provisions equal to a soldier’s ration, to the huntsman Giliashev 5 rubles, to the sluzhiv Klimovskoi 7 rubles, and to the three sluzhivs assigned as escorts the appropriate amounts as well as the provisions as indicated above. In Okhotsk you and your party are to be given the necessary provisions at cost, and you and your party are to be assigned quarters suitable for your investigations. Your reports directed to the High Governing Senate, the Academy of Sciences, or to us are to be accepted for expediting, and together with these reports all kinds of materials are to be shipped. You are to receive receipts for those. Shipments addressed to you are to be forwarded to you dependably and without delay from wherever they are received.
15. The student Stepan Krasheninnikov told us in his report of November 14, 1737, that on the sea voyage from Okhotsk to Kamchatka, together with other things, gray paper [“indispensable for the drying of plants,” Steller’s letter to von Korff, Quellen 3:271], part of the Crown things he had with him, was lost at sea so that he had only five books left. One thermometer broke, and a variety of vegetable seeds were lost at sea too. That is why we are now sending a thermometer, twenty books of gray paper, and a variety of vegetable seeds with you for that student. If you are confident that you will be able to depart from Irkutsk this spring and that there will not be any delays on the journey to Okhotsk, you will take these things you are now receiving with you to Kamchatka. If, however, you cannot expect to depart from Irkutsk soon or you have doubts about leaving from Yakutsk for Okhotsk in good time, then you must take these things to the Irkutsk Provincial Administration to be shipped right after you arrive in Irkutsk. Since it is necessary to get these things to Kamchatka quickly, you will demand that the administration, via ukase, stress the urgency of this shipment to the Yakutsk voevod’s administration.
16. If you are sent out from Irkutsk as outlined above, you will travel to the Lena River and demand that the Irkutsk Provincial Administration give you the required number of podvodi as well as the progon money for them. To keep a record of that money, you will demand a Schnurbuch ledger [see sample in appendix B] with the seal of the Irkutsk Provincial Administration in which the expenses will be entered and receipts recorded. In accordance with previous practice, it will be convenient to delegate these tasks to the sluzhiv Klimovskoi.
17. If, on the Lena, everything should be prepared for your trip on the river and you can be confident that there will be no disturbances or delay in transporting provisions for you and your party, then you are to travel to Yakutsk at once without stopping along the way so that you can use most of the summer for botanical observations in Yakutsk since that region has not yet been exhaustively investigated. If the opposite is the case, you will spend most of the summer in the region on the upper Lena to conduct similar investigations. You will then travel to Yakutsk in the fall and describe that region during the following summer. To carry this out in the best way, you are receiving descriptions of plants, birds, and animals on the Lena as well as lists of all the plants, animals, and birds of which we had drawings made and of those of which no drawings could reasonably be made for lack of time or other reasons. So that you are informed about what we have carried out and what you have to pay more attention to, we also added a list of some investigations we began but were unable to finish.
18. While you are traveling from Irkutsk to the Lena, you will describe the way of life, religious practices, and manners as well as anything regarding the political history of the Buryats living along the way. But if, because of other investigations, you should be unable to describe these things yourself, you will assign this task to the student Gorlanov. You will order the painter to make some drawings of the Buryat way of life—for example, a Buryat family in their [traditional] dress and their yurts, their kitchen utensils and other household items, the shamans, healing practices, and other remarkable things that should be represented in drawings. You will make an effort to do likewise with the Tungus on the Lena, especially in Yakutsk. You will order drawings made of any and all Tungus and Yakut dress, shamans, and sacrifices since up to now nothing about the Yakuts has been depicted in drawings.
19. After your arrival in Yakutsk, you will write to Captain Commander Bering and to the Okhotsk administration to demand information on when a seagoing vessel can be expected to depart from Okhotsk for Kamchatka. In the meantime you will promptly let the Yakutsk voevod know what you require for your impending journey so that, when the news arrives from Okhotsk that a seagoing vessel will depart from Okhotsk for Kamchatka in the summer or fall of 1740 and there will be no obstacles to transporting the provisions needed by you and your party, you will finally be able to travel to Okhotsk in the spring of the year 1740 and cross over to Kamchatka in the same year.
20. However, if against expectations you receive the news that no vessel will leave Okhotsk for Kamchatka in 1740 or that there are no provisions because none were delivered, you will, in the spring of 1740, travel to the lower Lena, either as far as the mouth of the Lena or only so far that you will be able to return to Yakutsk by fall of that year so that you will not have to spend the winter in those areas downriver, enduring much hardship. You will describe the areas through which you travel on the river in great detail and will compile a geographic list describing the banks, along with the ores and minerals found on them; the trees, plants, animals, and other things; and the peoples living there. You will make an effort to obtain a living Arctic fox [Vulpes lagopus] and a living small field mouse that Arctic foxes feed on and have them sketched. You will make an especially great effort to visit two or three places where either rotten or well-preserved mammoth bones are found in the ground. You will issue orders to dig for those from the top down so that no bones are moved out of place. You will describe the various sand, stone, and clay strata located above these bones, and you will indicate the depth of these strata and sequence in which these strata lie one on top of the other and whether they are horizontal, vertical, or slanted, and if slanted, their approximate angle and to which side they incline from top to bottom. When the soil above the bones has been completely removed so all the bones are visible, you are to describe, in detail, their position in the ground. At one of these places, you are to order the painter to make an exact drawing of the position of those bones. If you manage to gather a complete skeleton, you will take it with you to Yakutsk and ship it to St. Petersburg to be preserved in Her Imperial Majesty’s Kunstkammer.3 But if a lot of the bones necessary for a complete skeleton cannot be found, you will collect only the most notable and ship them to St. Petersburg. After these bones have been removed from the ground, you will describe the soil in which they were lying and dig up as much of the soil from the place underneath as you can without too much difficulty and describe that, too.
21. According to information sent to us by Professor de l’Isle de la Croyère, all kinds of investigations were conducted by him in the regions along the lower Lena. A student was sent by him to the mouth of both the Lena and the Olenek River, where he was ordered to collect all the curiosities found there and to bring them with him to Yakutsk. So that you may know ahead of time where you should concentrate your efforts, you will ask the professor for copies of the written information generated by him concerning the natural and political history, and you will look at the curiosities the student brought back. If among them you find some particularly unusual objects, you will select these and ask Professor la Croyère [sic] to have them shipped to St. Petersburg.
22. To complement information we had received before our stay in Yakutsk, we demanded that the Yakutsk voevod’s office provide us with more details about the geography and history of the Yakutsk district. We also requested that various Yakut clothing items be purchased for Her Imperial Majesty’s Kunstkammer, a request that was given added weight by a ukase from the Irkutsk Provincial Administration. To date we have, however, not received either news or articles of clothing from Yakutsk. You will therefore repeat our earlier demands to the Yakutsk administration and report to us what was done.
23. In accordance with Her Imperial Majesty’s ukase issued on June 19, 1732, by the High Governing Senate to the Academy of Sciences, it was ordered that the assay master Gardebol be assigned to our retinue. According to a letter Captain Commander Bering sent us on June 18 [actually January 18; WH, Anm. 35] of last year, 1738, Gardebol was apparently assigned in the summer of 1738 to accompany Captain Spangberg on a sea voyage. During your stay in Yakutsk, you will request Her Imperial Majesty’s pay for Gardebol. In the letter mentioned above, the captain commander informed us that the pay for Gardebol had been requested from the Yakutsk voevod’s office to the end of 1738, and that he was not obligated to further request pay for Gardebol since he had been assigned to our command. We replied to the captain commander that we would tend to Gardebol’s pay but would not be able to do anything just then since we were too far away. For this reason you will inquire of the Yakutsk voevod’s office for which years they had requested the pay for Gardebol and had paid him, and for which years, beginning with 1739, the captain commander did not request pay for Gardebol. You will request pay for Gardebol up to the year in which you depart from Okhotsk, and you will also take care of it until he is under your command.
24. We left some books and Crown materials in Yakutsk and charged the surveyor Krasil’nikov with looking after them. You will need some of those for your assignments. You have permission to use whichever ones you deem necessary but need to provide a receipt for them. You are being given an exact copy of the list of items in Krasil’nikov’s care.
25. We left a variety of mining tools in Yakutsk entrusted to the Yakutsk voevod’s office—for example, a large rock drill, a small rock drill, threaded shafts, hammers, mattocks, pick axes, shovels, hoes, drills, and other stuff, as well as a 360-pound supply of iron rods. Petr Bobrov, storehouse manager of the Yakutsk voevod’s office, gave us a receipt for these tools and the iron. You may take whichever of these tools you deem necessary. A list of these tools is appended to these instructions.
26. To transport the papers and books from Yakutsk to Okhotsk, you may take some of the Crown crates mentioned above in which the Crown things are stored. In case you need leather saddlebags tanned white to transport any kind of Crown things, you may demand those from whoever is in charge of them with the Kamchatka Expedition since—according to a letter written on April 10, 1735, and sent us by Captain Commander Bering—two hundred pairs of saddlebags were set aside for our retinue. When he left Yakutsk for Okhotsk, the student Krasheninnikov received twelve pairs of these for transporting his provisions.
27. When everything required for your journey to Okhotsk and Kamchatka has been prepared and you have received the news from Okhotsk that a sufficient supply of provisions has been transported to Okhotsk and that a seagoing vessel will be departing Okhotsk for Kamchatka, then you will, at the first opportunity, travel to Okhotsk with your party in the spring of the year in which the boat is leaving for Kamchatka. You will receive four horses for each podvoda for that journey in accordance with Her Imperial Majesty’s Geleitukase given us by the Siberian Government Administration, of which a copy has been made in the Yakutsk voevod’s office. Since this journey will take a long time, you will have the opportunity to diligently investigate everything concerning the geography, natural history, and political history of that region.
28. Until you can depart for Kamchatka, you will remain in Okhotsk. In the meantime you will devote your diligence to describing the natural history of the local area, especially the plants and trees, birds, animals, fishes, whales, all kinds of insects, shellfish, and crabs. This includes comparing the marine plants, birds, animals, fishes, insects, shellfish, and crabs to those plants, birds, and other creatures found in the rivers and on land, as well as to those living in both the sea and the rivers. As for the fish swimming from the sea into the rivers, you will describe precisely when they do so and how far up the rivers they go and at what time they return to the sea. You will describe which birds stay all year in the area around Okhotsk and which ones only temporarily, including which countries the latter come from and when and to which countries they return.
29. After you arrive in Okhotsk, you will demand that the administration of Okhotsk order the Koryaks to hunt a whale and bring it to Okhotsk. It is also possible that during your stay in Okhotsk a whale will be beached on the shore. You will describe such a whale and find out if there are other species of whales in that sea. You will dissect that whale and specifically describe it according to the special instructions given you as part of these.
30. You will also endeavor to find out if the medication called spermaceti may be extracted from that whale’s brain. The abovementioned special instructions describe how this medication is extracted from Greenland whales. If this medication can be prepared, you will send us a certain amount of it. You will, together with the medication, send us half a pound of a fresh whale brain in a glass or pot, securely caulked and with seal affixed, so that we can find out for certain ourselves by conducting our own experiment.
31. After you arrive in Okhotsk, you will—according to point 23 of these instructions—accept the assay master Gardebol into your party and demand that he provide you reports. You will order him to describe in detail what his investigations during his stay in Okhotsk consisted of, what he did on the sea voyage with Captain Spangberg, which places he explored, and what resulted from those explorations. As long as he belongs to your party, you will assign tasks to Gardebol and demand that he carry out investigations in line with his reports.
32. While you are in Okhotsk, you will find out everything about the religious beliefs of the local Lamut and Koryak peoples; about their customs, their way of life, their hunting and fishing practices; and about their weddings, burials, birth and rearing of children, oaths and vows, dispositions, virtues and vices, and anything else concerning them. If there happen to be any Tungus from Udskoi Ostrog in Okhotsk, you will find out from them whatever you can about the Gilyaks living around the mouth of the Amur River.
33. While in Okhotsk you will find out to the best of your ability the rivers and streams south and north of the Okhota River that flow into the Sea of Okhotsk, describing the width, depth, and flow rate of each, as well as the condition of their banks, the trees and brush, and the animals and birds found along their banks and the fish in their waters.
34. For the above-outlined investigations to be carried out in Okhotsk, you will, after your arrival, demand interpreters of the Lamut and Koryak languages from the administration of Okhotsk as well as a huntsman from among the local sluzhivs. When you leave Okhotsk, you will return all of them to that administration.
35. To provide you ahead of time with pertinent information about all kinds of animals, birds, fish, plants, and trees found in the Okhotsk region, you will receive exact copies of the lists the student Stepan Krasheninnikov made of the animals, birds, trees, and plants there, as well as of the descriptions Krasheninnikov made of some fish, birds, and sponges. Odds and ends of information concerning the natural history along the route from Yakutsk to Okhotsk have also been added.
36. If a seagoing vessel should depart for Kamchatka, stop your investigations in Okhotsk, leaving any unfinished ones behind for when you return from Kamchatka. Together with your party, take that ship to Kamchatka and go to Bol’sheretskoi Ostrog, where we sent the student Stepan Krasheninnikov and ordered him to stay.
37. After you arrive in Bol’sheretskoi Ostrog, you will take the student Krasheninnikov into your command and look over all the observations and investigations he has conducted since arriving in Kamchatka. Following our written directives, you will then correct any of his observations you consider questionable so no uncertainty remains. Then you will decide which future investigations are to be undertaken. As for the observations not yet carried out, you will carry those out as a supplement so that everything concerning natural and political history on Kamchatka shall have been described completely. You will write a general description of the land’s topography—namely, its mountains, grasslands, bogs, and forests as well as rocky, clayey, muddy, and sandy places, and the geologic structures. In this respect you should pay special attention to the location and inclination of the strata, which can be best observed in the mountains. Further, [you should describe the following:] the rivers and streams—where they originate and where they flow to; the season, time, and reasons for their maximum and minimum flows; the springs and lakes and their location; possible differences in size between the trees and plants growing there and those growing in Siberia, Russia, and other countries; and where in comparison to other regions the ground is elevated and the tallest mountains are located, for which barometric observations have to be made. You should also include a detailed description of the volcanoes and of the radical upheavals [earthquakes] occurring from time to time in the country—for example, that there used to be mountains, lakes, and bays where none now exist—and the creation of new mountains, lakes, and bays, as well as plague epidemics among the people, epidemics among the animals, and more.
38. To assure the best possible execution of the tasks you are asked to carry out on the journey from Yakutsk to Okhotsk, in Okhotsk, and on Kamchatka, you are provided an exact copy of the instructions we gave the student Krasheninnikov. In them all the duties relating to the natural and political history are laid out in detail. They also contain everything we have been told about those lands and particularly what is yet to be investigated. Also included is a geographical and political description of Kamchatka and the surrounding areas that you should scrutinize while on Kamchatka and, if necessary, correct and supplement.
39. Suitable help for your investigations is also provided by exact copies of questions concerning the natural and political history sent to the student Krasheninnikov at various times, as well as lists of animals, birds, fish, trees, and plants with their Russian names [see document 26, Quellen 3:94-95]. With this help you will be able to ask questions about all kinds of things. You will specifically order the painter to make drawings of whatever relates to the various native peoples’ way of life and their faith based on idolatry.
40. When you have carried out everything you were ordered to do on Kamchatka, you will return to Okhotsk with your party. If you and the student Krasheninnikov had not been able to complete your investigations in Okhotsk earlier for lack of time, you will carry those out after you return. Then you will travel back to Yakutsk, where, according to our suggestion, you will receive a decision made by the High Governing Senate or the Academy of Sciences about the route you are to travel on the way back from there to St. Petersburg.
41. Before you depart from Kamchatka or Okhotsk, you will return the assay master Gardebol to the command from which he came since we have no information whatsoever where he has been ordered to go after completing his assignments under our supervision.
42. So that we may always be informed about your investigations, you will send us regular reports about your observations and investigations every three months during your entire journey, and once a year while on Kamchatka. With those reports you will include catalogs of plants and trees, animals, birds, fish, and insects you found, as well as of all the ores and minerals. You will, in particular, send extensive descriptions and drawings of things never described before as well as historical reports you collect about the native peoples and geographical descriptions of all the places you visit. In all your investigations, you will distinguish between what you have seen with your own eyes and what you gathered from what others told you.
43. Additionally, you will endeavor to preserve in any way possible one or two specimens of the unknown plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, crabs, and shellfish, and to collect samples of all the noteworthy ores and minerals. You will put together skeletons of the large animals, making sure to have the fat removed. You will send these things to be preserved in Her Imperial Majesty’s Kunstkammer, together with your reports to us. Furthermore, with respect to the unknown plants and trees, you will very carefully gather their ripe seeds and roots dug up at a suitable time; you will ship them at the first opportunity. You will personally bring the roots and seeds you gather during your last year on Kamchatka with you to Okhotsk and send them off as quickly as possible to St. Petersburg so that attempts at propagating them can be undertaken.
44. Along with the abovementioned reports on your observations, you will also report on all the circumstances of the progress of your journey and on your priorities, where and when and coming from where you intend to spend some time, and when and where you are encountering the biggest obstacles, possibly causing interruptions in your investigations. You must therefore keep a daily journal in which to record everything that happens during your travels. When you correspond with government offices or other parties about your journey or investigations, you will diligently collect and save all letters, including those you receive, and order that they be bound into a book. With respect to things needed, you will send us copies of that correspondence.
45. In ukases of Her Imperial Majesty sent at various times during 1733 from the High Governing Senate to the Academy of Sciences, it was ordered that the students of the Slavic-Latin School attached to our retinue were to receive instruction and their pay through us, and we were to see to it that they would always have enough clothes and food, that they would not spend money foolishly, and that they would spend their time in a meaningful way. Therefore, you will definitely act in accordance with these ukases.
46. During the entire journey there and back, you will enter all the progon money and all the Crown moneys you spend into a Schnurbuch ledger, which you will request of the Irkutsk Provincial Administration. You will have receipts for those expenses entered into that ledger, and you will also enter the expenses from your personal funds you use to purchase materials for your investigations.
47. When you send off your reports, it is permissible to accept letters from all persons with you and others belonging to the Kamchatka Expedition and send them by mail free of charge. However, in their envelopes you must not include private mail from foreign merchants or people of other ranks or include anything in packages since that has been prohibited under threat of legal prosecution by ukase of the Governing Senate.
48. If secrecy is to be maintained about some of the Crown things, you must absolutely not write about them to anybody in your private letters, and you can write in official reports only to those who have sent you on your way. But if anyone should hinder you in any way, you are free to write to whomever you wish. Name the matter you have been tasked with and who or what is responsible for this hindrance. You are equally at liberty to write to someone you trust, if an irregularity subject to secrecy occurs and it is impossible to voice a suspicion in reports to the offices or persons that have given you your assignments. However, you must—under threat of penalty through Crown ukases—not write about your actual assignments.
49. Furthermore, the Irkutsk Provincial Administration was thoroughly informed in a memorandum about every aspect of the assignments we gave you; a copy of it is attached. To keep him informed, we also wrote Captain Commander Bering in Okhotsk about them.
50. In support of your investigations, you are now provided with some books and Crown materials listed in the following catalog; according to instruction 24 above, you may add to these books and Crown materials whatever you deem necessary from those located in Yakutsk.
Catalog
Caspari Bauhini Pinax [Caspar Bauhin’s Catalog of Plants]
Tournefortii Institutiones Rei Herbariae cum Corollaria Institutionum Rei Herbariae in II Volumine [Tournefort’s Elements of Botany with an Addendum (to the 2nd vol. after his travels in Armenia), in two volumes]
Thomae Willis opera omnia [Complete Works of Thomas Willis]
Ioannis Raii Methodus emendata et aucta editus 1710 [John Ray’s Methodically Arranged Plant Survey, improved and enlarged edition, 1710]
Eiusdem De variis plantarum methodis dissertatio [Ray’s Catalog of Different Plant Taxa]
Eiusdem Stirpium Europaearum extra Britannias nascentium sylloge [Ray’s Catalog of European Plant Taxa Growing Outside of Britain]
Eiusdem Synopsis methodica animalium Quadrupedum et serpentini generis [Ray’s Methodical Synopsis of Four-Footed and of Serpent Animal Genera]
Nine pounds of gunpowder
Two and a quarter pounds of quicksilver
Nine pounds of cotton
Five reams of stationery paper
Three books of thin stationery paper
Six books of gray paper
Twelve small pots for samples
Twenty pounds of Moscow clay from which to make such pots
One barometric glass tube with scale board
For the anatomical observations:
One hamulus [small surgical hook]
Four different-size needles
Five knives
Three lancets
The student Gorlanov was given the following Crown books:
Physicae modernae sanioris compendium Erotematicum Johannis Christophori Sturmii [Johann Christoph Sturm’s Love-Themed Compendium of Curative Modern Physics]
C. Sallustii opera [Sallust’s Works]
Juvenalis et Persii Satyrae [Satyr Plays of Juvenal and Persius]
Plinii Junioris Epistolae [Pliny the Younger’s Letters]
Grammatica Germano-Russica [German-Russian Grammar]
The prospector Grigorei Samoilov received:
Two hammers
Two pickaxes
One hoe
One shovel
Eight mattocks
One hatchet
The huntsman Giliashev was issued his rifle.
Notes
1. Title and function likely corresponding to an English councillor’s.
2. Literally, foreigners; at the time, usually foreigners in Russian service, but iasachnye inozemtsy meant yasak-paying Siberian tribes. WH, Glossar. Gmelin and Müller use the term to refer to the indigenous peoples.
3. German (G), collection established by Peter the Great in St. Petersburg and completed in 1727, dedicated to preserving natural and human curiosities and rarities.
