Rear-Admiral James Burney (1750–1821), brother of the novelist Fanny Burney and son of the musicologist Dr Charles Burney, is best known for his five-volume compilation of voyages in the Pacific Ocean (also reissued in this series). He began his maritime career at the age of ten, as a captain's servant. Five years later he became a naval officer, and from 1772 to 1780 served on Cook's second and third voyages to the South Seas. Following his forced retirement in 1784, he turned to his second career as an author. Published in 1819, this work summarises nine hundred years of exploration of the coastline from Northern Europe to North-East Asia, from the Norse chieftain Ochter's voyage around the North Cape in 890 CE to Captain Billings' 1790 expedition to the Aleutian Islands. He concludes with a detailed discussion of the search for a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Contents
Preface; 1. Concerning the earliest knowledge obtained of the sea north of Europe and of Asia; 2. Voyages made by the English, and by the Hollanders, in search of a North-East Passage from the European seas to India; 3. Of the general extension of the Russian Empire; 4. Report of a large land in the Icy Sea; 5. Attempts from the European Sea to discover a North-East Passage by the Danes, by the Dutch, and by John Wood, an Englishman; 6. Invasion of Kamtschatka; 7. Of the voyage of Taras Staduchin from the Kolyma to the sea of Kamtschatka; 8. Expedition of the Russians against the Tschuktzki; 9. Invasion of the Kurili Islands; 10. The Russians build ships in the ports of the Eastern Sea; 11. Willegin and Amossow in the Icy Sea; 12. Voyage of Captain Vitus Bering from Kamtschatka to the North; 13. Plans and expeditions of Schestakow; 14. Plans formed at Petersburgh for the prosecution of Eastern Discovery; 15. Voyage of Spanberg and Walton to Japan; 16. Voyage of Commodore Bering and Captain Tschirikow to America; 17. Enterprising attempts of Shalauroff, a Russian merchant, to sail round the north-east of Asia; 18. Of the lands in the Icy Sea; 19. Captain James Cook on the north-west coast of America; 20. Captain Cook through Bering's Strait, and in the sea north of the Strait; 21. Sequel; 22. Expedition of Captain Joseph Billings into the Icy Sea; 23. Billings at the Aleutian Islands; 24. Journey of Captain Billings through the country of the Tschuktzki; Conclusion.
Printer friendly version