198 BALL 



the Unalaska District ' has built the only existing founda- 

 tion for the anthropology of the people he served so well. 

 For seven years he worked among them and his memory 

 is still dear in the land. 



In 1825 a convention between Great Britain and Russia 

 was signed, by which the boundaries of Russian territory 

 were established, the Hudson Bay Company definitely ex- 

 cluded from every part of the seacoast north of Lat. 54 

 40', and the unknown territory north of the St. Elias Alps 

 equitably divided by an astronomical line, the I4ist 

 meridian west from Greenwich. 



The interest in Arctic exploration which had been in- 

 strumental in promoting the voyages of Ross, Franklin, 

 Parry, Richardson, and Back on the northeastern shores 

 of America now instigated cooperative explorations in the 

 North Pacific. This work began with the work of 

 Beechey in H. M. S. Blossom, which sailed from England 

 in 1825. The following year one of the most fruitful of 

 Russian scientific expeditions to America sailed from St. 

 Petersburg in the corvette Seniavine, commanded by 

 Liitke, who was assisted by the naturalists Kittlitz, Post- 

 els, and Mertens. Beechey pushed northward as far as 

 the ice would admit his vessel and sent a boat party, 

 under Elson, which reached and named Point Barrow, the 

 most northern extreme of Alaska. During the same sum- 

 mer Franklin, pushing westward from the Mackenzie, 

 reached Return Reef, the most western point of his ex- 

 plorations, on the Arctic coast. 



The Company's officers continued their surveys in 1832, 

 established Fort KolmakofF on the Kuskokwim River, 

 and a year later TebenkofF built Redoubt St. Michael on 

 Norton Sound. In 1835 a meteorological and magnetic 

 observatory was established at Sitka, where for many 

 years a first class series of observations was kept up. In 

 1835 the delta of the Yukon and Kuskokwim was explored 



