This study is concerned with the legacy of the secret north-east Pacific Billings-Sarychev expedition from 1785 to 1795 that was commissioned by the Empress Catharina II and opened up the Aleutian Islands and the coastal area of Alaska for the Russian Empire. The travel reports are analysed against the background of the scientific advancements made in the 18th century with respect to the way Europeans dealt with the strange new world. Taking into account the academic networks that extended beyond state borders across the whole of Europe at the time, the book focuses on the linkages between research and colonisation policy, relations between the centre and the peripheries of the Russian Empire and a gradual fragmentation of the universal sciences into individual disciplines.