58 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 
NO. 1—NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY, INCLUDING DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW CETA- 
CEANS. 
By LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 
Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD, 
Secretary Smithsonian Institution, 
Director U. S. National Museum: 
DEAR Sir: As announced in my letter from San Francisco, the 
steamer “Alexander” started on the 5th of April at noon. The wind 
was very unfavorable, most of the time blowing from the west, and 
very often with a force of 40 miles an hour or more. Up to the 24th 
my observations show twice only a direction of wind from a different 
quarter. As we were compelled to make about one thousand miles under 
sail, our progress was necessarily slow, so that on the 23d of April we 
found ourselves only in longitude 145° west, and latitude 50° 35’ north, 
about 500 miles southwest from Sitka, and as many miles southeast 
from Kodiak. On the 30th of April we passed the Aleutian chain be- 
tween Seguam and Annlia, in fog and sleet, and Bering Sea received us 
with a veritable hurricane from the east-northeast. After having 
stopped at the village of Copper Island the anchor was dropped in the 
morning of the 7th of May at Gavan, the harbor of Bering Island, 
where I landed with as much of my baggage as could be taken on 
shore before the cargo had been discharged in Petropaulski. Ere long 
I was comfortably lodged and began my work. 
At first I was much confined to my station on account of the meteoro- 
logical observations. Not until the obliging agent of the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, Mr. G. Chernick, had been instructed how to take 
and record these observations, could I think of making longer excur- 
sions. Many thanks are due to him for his kind assistance. Thus I 
was unable to cross the northern part of the island, consisting chiefly 
of flat swamps and tundras, of lakes, a moderately high plateau, and 
a chain of interesting table mountains of about the same height, while 
the southern, mountainous and larger, two-thirds of the island remained 
a complete terra incognita to me. I therefore planned an expedition 
with the purpose of exploring the secrets of this region, the more as it 
was especially there that Steller had made his observations. But I had 
to wait until the sealing season was over, for all hands now were occu- 
pied in this, their chief, and one may safely say, only work. 
Meanwhile I resolved to go to Petropaulski on the 16th of June to 
establish a meteorological station, and to hire and train an observer. 
Besides, it was my desire to study as much of the natural history of 
Kamtschatka as the surroundings and the limited time would permit. 
