Behring

Behring, or BERING, VITUS, a famous navigator, born in 1680, at Horsens, in Denmark. He entered early the newly-formed navy of Peter the Great, and for the ability and daring he displayed in the wars with Sweden, was appointed to conduct an expedition of discovery in the Sea of Kamchatka. Sailing in 1728 from a port on the east of Kamchatka, he followed the coast northward until he believed, from the westward trending of the land, that he had reached the north-east point of Asia. After some years spent in explorations on the coasts of Kamchatka, Okhotsk, and the north of Siberia, he sailed in 1741 from Okhotsk towards the American continent, and sighting land about 58½° N. lat., he followed the coast northward for some distance; but sickness and storms obliged him to return, and being wrecked on the desert island of Avatcha, since called Behring Island, he died there, December 19, 1741. Among the few who escaped, in a boat made from the wreck, was Steller, the naturalist, who has left an account of the voyage (St Petersburg, 1793).