Mr Coxe, whose accurate researches into this subject give his opinion great weight, is persuaded that the extremity of the Noss in question was never passed but by Deshneff and his party, who sailed from the river Kovyma in the year 1648, and are supposed to have got round it into the Anadir. As the account of this expedition, the substance of which the reader will find in Mr Coxe's Account of Russian Discoveries, contains no geographical delineation of the coast along which they sailed, its position must be conjectured from incidental circumstances; and from these it appears very manifest, that the Tschukotskoi Noss of Deshneff is no other than the promontory called by Captain Cook the East Cape. Speaking of the Noss, he says, "One might sail from the isthmus to the river Anadir, with a fair wind, in three days and three nights." This exactly coincides with the situation of the East Cape, which is about one hundred and twenty leagues from the mouth of the Anadir; and as there is no other isthmus to the northward between that and the latitude of 69°, it is obvious that, by this description, he must intend either the cape in question, or some other to the southward of it. In another place he says, "Over against the isthmus there are two islands in the sea, upon which were seen people of the Tschutski nation, through whose lips were run pieces of the teeth of the sea-horse." This again perfectly agrees with the two islands situated to the S.E. of the East Cape. We saw indeed no inhabitants on them, but it is not at all improbable that a party of the Americans from the opposite continent, whom this description accurately suits, might, at that time, have been accidentally there; and whom it was natural enough for him to mistake for a tribe of the Tschutski.[25]
These two circumstances are of so striking and unequivocal a nature, that they appear to me conclusive on the point of the Tschukotskoi Noss, notwithstanding there are others of a more doubtful kind, which we have from the same authority, and which now remain to be considered. "To go," says Deshneff in another account, "from the Kovyma to the Anadir, a great promontory must be doubled, which stretches very far into the sea;" and afterwards, "this promontory stretches between N. and N.E." It was probably from the expressions contained in these passages, that Mr Muller was induced to give the country of the Tschutski the form we find in his map; but had he been acquainted with the situation of the east cape, as ascertained by Captain Cook, and the remarkable coincidence between it and this promontory or isthmus, (for it must be observed, that Deshneff appears to be all along speaking of the same thing), in the circumstances already mentioned, I am confident he would not have thought those expressions, merely by themselves, of sufficient weight to warrant him in extending the north-eastern extremity of Asia, either so far to the north or to the eastward. For, after all, these expressions are not irreconcilable with the opinion we have adopted, if we suppose Deshneff to have taken these bearings from the small bight which lies to the westward of the cape.