76 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



wliicli I present herewith for the first time to the public. The absence 

 of definite information in regard to what I conceive to be of vital 

 interest and importance to the whole business astonished me; I could 

 not at first believe it; and, for the last four or five years, I have been 

 searching among the archives of the old Russian company, as I 

 searched diligently when up there and elsewhere in the Territory of 

 Alaska, for some evidence in contradiction of this statement which I 

 have just made. I wanted to find — I hoped to discover — some old 

 record, some clue, by which I could measui-e with authority and 

 entire satisfaction to my own mind the relative volume of seal life in 

 the past as compared with that which I record in the present, but 

 was disappointed. 



I am unable, throughout the whole of the following discussion, to 

 cite a single reliable statement which can give any idea as to the con- 

 dition and numbers of the fur seal on these islands when they were 

 discovered in 1786-87, or during the whole time of their occupation 

 since up to the date of my arrival. I mark this so conspicuously, for 

 it is certainly a very strange oversight, a kind of neglect, which, in 

 my opinion, has been, to say the least, inexcusable. 



Russian records. — In attempting to form an approximate con- 

 ception of what the seals were or might have been in those early days, 

 as they spread themselves over the hauling and breeding grounds of 

 these remarkable islands, I have been thrown entirely upon the vague 

 statements given to me by the natives and one or two of the first 

 American pioneers in Alaska. The only Russian record which 

 touches ever so lightlj' upon the subject^ contains the remarkable 

 statement, which is, in the light of my surveys, simply ridiculous now; 

 that is, that the number of fur seals on St. George during the first 

 years of Russian occupation was nearly as great as that on St. Paul. 

 The most superficial examination of the geological character portrayed 

 on the accompanying maps of these two islands will satisfy anj^ unprej- 

 udiced mind as to the total error of such a statement. Why, a mere 

 tithe only of the multitudes which repair to St. Paul, in perfect com- 

 fort, over the 16 to 20 miles of splendid landing ground found thereon, 

 could visit St. George, when all of the coast line fit for their recep- 



' Veniaminov: Zapieskie ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 

 1842. This work of Bishop Innocent Veniaminov is the only one which the Rus- 

 sians can lay claim to as exhilnting anything like a history of western Alaska, or 

 of giving a sketch of its inhabitants and resources, that has the least merit of 

 truth or the faintest stamp of reliability. Without it we should be simply in the 

 dark as to much of what the Russians were about during the whole period of their 

 occupation and possession of that country. He served, chiefly as a priest and 

 missionary, for twenty-five years, from 1814 to 1839, at Unalaska, having the seal 

 islands in his i^arish, and was made bishop of all Alaska. He was soon after 

 recalled to Russia, where he has since become the primate of the national church, 

 ranking second to no man in the Empire, save the Czar. He is advaiiced in years, 

 being now more than 90 years of age. He must have been a man of fine personal 

 appearance, judging from the following description of him, noted by Sir George 

 Simpson, who met him at Sitka in 1842, just as he was about to embark for Rus- 

 sia: " His appearance, to which I have already alluded, impresses a stranger with 

 something of awe, while in further intercourse the gentleness which characterizes 

 his every word and deed insensibly molds reverence into love; and, at the same 

 time, his talents and attainments are such as to be worthy of his exalted station. 

 With all this, the bishop is sufficiently a man of the world to disdain anything 

 like cant. His conversation, on the contrary, teems with amusement and instruc- 

 tion, and his company is miich prized by all who have the honor of his acquaint- 

 ance." Siich is the portrait drawn of him by a governor of the Hudson Bay 

 Company. [Veniaminov died since the above note was written, at Moscow, April 

 22, 1879.— H. W.E.] 



