236 ALASKA. 



the most important and central point ; but even Kodiak would 

 be better than Sitka, which has uow no importance and hardly 

 any business.(O) 



Apologizing for having trespassed on your attention with so 

 lengthy a communication, 1 will now close this letter with one 

 remark, which has no special connection with the foregoing, but 

 which I believe of some importance. This is, that it would be 

 very desirable that the ofticers of the United States employed 

 on the Pribiloff Islands should be prohibited from receiving 

 pay from, or rendering services for pay to, the company whom 

 practically they are placed there to watch. That this has oc- 

 curred iu several instances I am aware, and probably in some 

 cases without any improper intent on either side ; but it is ev- 

 ident at once that it opens a wide door for scandal, if not for 

 fraud.(lO) 



I remain, with great respect, yours, very trulj', 



WM. H. BALL, 

 Acting Assistant United States Coast-Survey, 



In charge Hgdrograpliic Bcconnaissance of Alasl'a. 

 Messrs. H. W. Elliott and 

 AVashburn Maynard, r. S. N., 



United States Commissioners. 



C03niEXTS UPOX THE FOEEGOIXG LETTER. 



(1) The fact the Russian American Company, at tlie close of its 

 third term of twentj^ years, in 18G2, was over two millions of sil- 

 A'er rubles in debt may have had a great deal to do with the 

 failure in getting a renewal of its charter. A losing business is 

 not often persisted in a great while by either corporations or in- 

 dividuals. The extravagance and shiftlessness in the manage- 

 ment of affairs in Alaska by the officers of the Kussian Ameri- 

 can Company, during the last twenty or thirty years of its exist- 

 ence, may alone have tended to the result. 



(2) Here Mr. Ball, not directly perhaps, but i)lainly, gives us 

 to understand that a number of natives, Aleuts, were educated 

 in Kussian schools, and •' participated with great credit to them- 

 selves in the exploration of the Territory, and commanded ves- 

 sels belonging to" the company, or otherwise held positions of 

 responsibility." This is a mistake ; for these people, serving with 

 such credit, educated by the company in question, were not Aleuts, 

 but Creoles, or half-breeds, and octoroons. There is no record of 

 ^n^- service rendered the Russian company by the Aleuts, other 



