■ DISCOVERIES ABOUT BERING SEA. 25 



Island and Cape Rodney, and returned alono^ tlie .S"ijseqnentRns- 



1. 'J ' o SI ail expeditions. 



Asiatic coast. Other expeditions followed at 

 various times, an important one being tliat of 

 Korasakovsky, who, in 1818, made a thorough ex- 

 ploration of a great part of the eastern shore of 

 the sea and established a fort at the mouth of 

 the Nushagak.^ 



The great wealth to be derived from the fur- Shores and is- 



^ lands became Rus- 



bearino' animals led to permanent settlements, ^^'^V territory as 



^ ^ ' early as 1800. 



tlie subjugation of the native tribes, and the es- 

 tablishment of forts or trading posts by the Rus- 

 sians on various of the Aleutian Islands, on the 

 Pribilof Islands, and on the eastern mainland of 

 Bering Sea during the latter part of the eight- 

 eenth and early years of the nineteenth centuries. 

 Thus, by first discovery, occupation, and perma- 

 nent colonization, the shores and islands of 

 Bering Sea, the Aleutian Chain, and the peninsula 

 of Alaska became, probably as early as 1800, an 

 undisputed part of the territory of the Russian 

 Empire.^ 



1 The -whole of this shore, together -with other territory, had 

 already been claimed by Russia in the ukase of 1799, refereuce to 

 which will be hereafter more fully made. See, generally, tipon fhe 

 ■vvhole of the foregoing subject Vivien de Saint-Martin, vol. I, 

 "Alaska," pp. 55, 56. 



- See "Russia's Early Title to parts of the Coast of America/ 

 Vol. I, p. 12. 



2716- 



