1 86 DALL 



Congress of some tardy and far from adequate legislation 

 looking toward good order and settlement ; by the ex- 

 haustion of the fur trade ; and by the development of 

 mineral resources in the line of the precious metals. 



The geographer Gerhard Friedrich Muller during his 

 researches in Siberia about 1750, ransacked the archives 

 of Yakutsk and other East Siberian settlements for records 

 of early explorations. His extracts from them are all that 

 are saved to us of those invaluable reports, the originals 

 of which were long since destroyed by the fires which 

 have repeatedly ravaged the cities of eastern Siberia. 

 Among these extracts is found one relating to the journey 

 of Peter Iliunsen PopofF who was sent to East Cape in 

 January, 1711, with two interpreters, to endeavor to in- 

 duce the obstinate Chukchi natives to pay tribute, and to 

 obtain such information about the region as could be se- 

 cured. The party returned to the trading post on the 

 Anadyr River in the following September. They had not 

 been able to convince the Chukchi that there was any suffi- 

 cient reason for paying tribute, but they brought back, 

 among other items of information, the news that beyond 

 the islands off the Chukchi peninsula lay a large conti- 

 nent, forested, inhabited, with great rivers, where were a 

 people with tails like dogs, wearing skin clothing, and 

 living upon wild reindeer and sea animals. The learned 

 academician apologizes for recording this fable of the wild 

 Chukchi, which, however, carries with it the confirmation 

 of the story of PopofFs visit ; since we now know that it is 

 a common practice of the American Eskimo to wear the 

 tail of a wolf or dog at the back of his girdle on cere- 

 monial occasions, or while traveling. 



This is the first authentic mention of the continent east 

 of Bering Strait and its inhabitants, though mention had 

 been made by earlier explorers of accounts by the Chuk- 

 chi of the Diomede and St. Lawrence Islands. 



