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1802 |
An account of a geographical and astronomical expedition to the northern parts of Russia, for ascertaining the degrees of latitude and longitude of the mouth of the River Kovima; of the whole coast of the Tshutski, to East Cape; and of the islands in the Eastern Ocean, stretching to the American coast. Performed, by command of Her Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second, Empress of All the Russias, by Commodore Joseph Billings, in the years 1785, &c. to 1794. The whole narrated from the original papers, by Martin Sauer, secretary to the expedition.
London, T. Cadell, Jr., & W. Davies: xxvi + 332 + 58. 14 pls. 1 map.
–States in passing, in discussing the fauna of Kodiak Island (p. 181): {"Sea cows were very numerous about the coast of Kamtshatka, and the Aleutan [sic] islands, at the time when they were first discovered; but the last of this species was killed in 1768 on Bering's island, and none have been ever seen since."}
Although this bald and unsupported statement is our sole authority for specifying 1768 as the date of the extinction of Hydrodamalis, it is corroborated by the fact that several subsequent visitors to the Commander Islands made no mention of any sea cows surviving after that date (see K. E. v. Baer, 1840: 70), and purported sightings at various times down to the present have not been convincing (see Domning, 1978b: 135-139).
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