The last question that arises is, to what degree of northern latitude this coast extends, before it trends more directly to the westward. If the situation of the mouth of the Kovyma, both with respect to its latitude and longitude, were accurately determined, it would perhaps not be very difficult to form a probable conjecture upon this point. Captain Cook was always strongly of opinion that the northern coast of Asia, from the Indigirka eastward, has hitherto been generally laid down more than two degrees to the northward of its true position; and he has, therefore, on the authority of a map that was in his possession, and on the information he received at Oonalashka, placed the mouth of the river Kovyma, in his chart of the N.W. coast of America, and the N.E. coast of Asia, in the latitude of 68°. Should he be right in this conjecture, it is probable, for the reasons that have been already stated, that the Asiatic coast does not any where exceed 70°, before it trends to the westward; and consequently, that we were within 1° of its north-eastern extremity. For, if the continent be supposed to stretch any where to the northward of Shelatskoi Noss, it is scarcely possible that so extraordinary a circumstance should not have been mentioned by the Russian navigators; and we have already shewn that they make mention of no remarkable promontory between the Kovyma and the Anadir, except the east cape. Another circumstance, related by Deshneff, may, perhaps, be thought a further confirmation of this opinion, namely, that he met with no impediment from ice in navigating round the N.E. extremity of Asia; though, he adds, that this sea is not always so free from it, as indeed is manifest from the failure of his first expedition, and since that, from the unsuccessful attempts of Shalauroff, and the obstacles we met with, in two different years, in our present voyage.[27]
The continent left undetermined in our chart between Cape North, and the mouth of the Kovyma is, in longitudinal extent, one hundred and twenty-five leagues. One-third, or about forty leagues, of this distance, from the Kovyma eastward, was explored in the year 1723, by a _sinbo-jarskoi_ of Jakutz, whose name was Feodor Amossoff, by whom Mr Muller was informed, that its direction was to the eastward. It is said to have been since accurately surveyed by Shalauroff, whose chart makes it trend to the N.E. by E., as far as the Shelatskoi Noss, which he places about forty-three leagues to the eastward of the Kovyma. The space between this Noss and Cape North, about eighty-two leagues, is therefore the only part of the Russian empire that now remains unascertained.