The Days of a Man 



1896 



The Aleuts The native population, about three hundred in 

 all, descendants of Aleuts brought as needed in the 

 early days from Alaska or Kamchatka, lived in 

 decent cottages, puritanically white, though on the 

 Russian islands the authorities tactfully allow vari- 

 ous shades blue, green, yellow, or scarlet to 

 suit the taste of the occupant. The Aleuts do the 

 work in connection with the seal industry, but as 

 the season is short they are mightily at leisure for 

 the greater part of the year, and are, moreover, 

 generously provided with food by the Government. 

 Of this a large and very acceptable part consists of 

 the flesh of the beasts killed for skins. Many of 

 the people are quite intelligent and capable; some 

 of them show traces of Russian, and others (ap- 

 parently) of American blood. Apollon Bovedurfsky, 

 the tribal chief, was a man of ability and proved 

 helpful in our work. 



Practically the whole of every day was spent by 

 us in observation of the animals. Strolling thus 

 across Zolotoi * Sands on my way to Gorbatch 

 Rookery, I once made an unexpected discovery, for 

 in the sand I saw the skeleton of a young Fur Seal, 

 which seemed at once to clear up the mystery of 

 the so-called "Roblar Man." In 1894, Mr. Van R. 

 Elliott, a civil engineer of Paso Robles, reported to 

 me the discovery of a fossil skeleton, apparently 

 human, on a hill at the neighboring hamlet of 

 Roblar. At Elliott's suggestion I went to examine 

 the specimen. The imprint lay on a bare outcrop 

 of a very hard, white limestone deposited in Miocene 

 times as a soft calcareous clay. Head and limbs 

 were lacking, but the torso seemed surprisingly like 



1 This word, which means "golden," is locally pronounced "Zoltoi." 



C 5583 



The 



' Roblar 

 Man" 



