was the retreat of immense herds of seals. On the island of St. 

 George they passed the winter" (Sauer 1802:211). According 

 to Tikhmenev's account, written 40 yr later than Sauer's, the 

 landing on St. Paul was made during the summer of 1787, 

 after the first wintering. 



St. Paul is actually the larger of the two islands. A chart of 

 Sauer's course shows that he passed about 18 mi (30 km) to the 

 westward of St. Paul and could not have seen it distinctly; 

 Northeast Point is shown as a series of dots (Fig. 1). If we as- 

 sume that St. Paul was discovered on the holy day of St. Peter 

 and St. Paul, then it was discovered on 29 June, old style, or 

 10 July, new style, 1786 or 1787 (Dall 1870). This would be at 

 the height of the seal breeding season. 



The islands were uninhabited by man and were rich in wild- 

 life. During the first year, the hunters took 40,000 fur seal 

 skins, 2,000 sea otter, Enhydra lulris, skins, and 14,400 lb 

 (6,500 kg) of walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, ivory (Bancroft 

 1886:191-193). 



The Russian period was essentially the period of the Rus- 

 sian-American Company, chartered by Emperor Paul I on 8 

 July 1799 as a monopoly for trading, hunting, and mining on 

 the northwest coast of America from lat. 55 °N northward 

 (U.S. Congress, Senate 1895, part 2, p. 34-70). An imperial 

 ukase to this effect was issued on 27 December 1799 (U.S. 

 Congress, House 1889:xv). 



For 1 yr, 1799, the Pribilofs were controlled by the United 

 American Company, a group which was organized in August 

 1798 and which developed into the Russian- American Com- 

 pany (Baden-Powell and Dawson 1893:197). The charter of 

 the Russian- American Company was renewed in 1822 and 

 again in 1842; it expired on 1 January 1862. The buildings of 

 the Company were transferred to the United States with the 

 sale of Alaska in 1867. "In the first period [1799-1821] of the 

 Company's existence there was peltry but no order. In the sec- 

 ond period [1822-40], there was more order but less peltry, 

 and, finally, in the third period [1842-62], there was perfect 



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Matwi If Gtnvs T 



tr'sr&uddLi- 



VTfwtonirs t. 



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V 



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Figure 1.— Earliest iinown than of the Priliiiof Isalnds. On 12 July 1791 "Si. George's Island bore soulheasi 57° 

 distant 16 miles; and soon after we sa» the island of St. Paul" (Sauer 1802:233» (photo hv V. B. Scheffer). 



