The story of the world's largest, longest, and best financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue. Until now recorded only in academic works, this 10-year venture, led by the legendary Danish captain Vitus Bering and including scientists, artists, mariners, soldiers, and laborers, discovered Alaska, opened the Pacific fur trade, and led to fame, shipwreck, and "one of the most tragic and ghastly trials of suffering in the annals of maritime and arctic history.

An appendix documents the many small islands that have dropped entirely from view since the seventeenth century.

When the United Nations undertook the publication of the Reports of International Arbitral Awards, the 'Pasicrisie internationale' was identified as one of the rare truly general collections of international case law in existence. In fact, in deciding to publish the arbitration clauses and arbitral awards from 1794 to 1900, Henri La Fontaine was doing pioneering work, foreshadowing the famous Reports by half a century. As we near the end of the century, the 'Pasicrisie internationale' remains just as pertinent as it was when first published in 1902. This collection of arbitral awards, with its modest appearance, has certainly contributed more to the development of international arbitration case law than any number of lyrical speeches advocating peace through law. First edition printed in 1902 by Stämpfli, Bern. Lorsque l'Organisation des Nations Unies entreprit la publication de son Recueil des sentences arbitrales, elle identifia la Pasicrisie internationale comme constituant l'une des rares véritables collections générales de jurisprudence internationale préexistantes. De fait, en décidant de rassembler les clauses compromissoires et les sentences arbitrales de 1794 à1900, Henri La Fontaine avait fait oeuvre de pionnier et il préfigurait, avec un demi-siècle d'avance, le célèbre Recueil. En cette fin de siècle, la Pasicrisie internationale constitue donc un outil de travail toujours aussi actuel que lors de sa publication en 1902. Cette compilation de sentences arbitrales, d'apparence modeste, a certainement plus contribué au développement de la jurisprudence arbitrale internationale que bien des discours lyriques prônant la paix par le droit. Première édition imprimée en 1902 par Stämpfli, Berne.