OCEANIC MAMMALS 419 



charter of the Russian-American Co. Shortly after, under the 

 management of Shelikof and Baranof, the work was organized, 

 and a fleet of bidarkas, manned by native Aleuts, started an 

 intensive campaign. H. W. Elliott (1875) writes: "During 

 the first few years the numbers of these animals taken all along 

 the Aleutian chain, and down the whole northwest coast as 

 far as Oregon, were very great ; for instance, when 



the Prybilov Islands were first discovered, two sailors, Lukan- 

 non and Kaiekov, killed at St. Paul's Island, in the first year 

 of occupation, five thousand, the next year they got less than a 

 thousand, and in six years after not a single sea-otter appeared, 

 and none have appeared since. When Shellikov's party first 

 visited Cook's Inlet, they secured three thousand; during the 

 second year, two thousand; in the third, only eight hundred; 

 the season following they obtained six hundred; and finally, in 

 1812, less than a hundred, and since then not a tenth of that 

 number. The first visit made by the Russians to the Gulf of 

 Yahkutat, in 1794, two thousand sea-otters were taken, but 

 they diminished so rapidly that in 1799 less than three hundred 

 were taken. In 1798 a large party of Russians and Aleuts 

 captured in Sitka Sound and "^neighborhood twelve hundred 

 skins, besides those for which they traded with the natives 

 there, fully as many more; and in the spring of 1800 a few 

 American and English vessels came into Sitka Sound, and 

 anchored off the small Russian settlement there, and traded 

 with the natives for over two thousand skins, getting the 

 trade of the Indians by giving fire-arms and powder, ball, &c., 

 which the Russians did not dare to do, living then, as they were, 

 in the country. In one of the early years of the Russian- 

 American Company, 1804, Baranov went to the Okotsk from 

 Alaska with fifteen thousand sea-otter skins, that were worth 

 as much then as they are now [1875], viz., fully $1,000,000." 

 These tremendous inroads very quickly had an alarming 

 effect. A Russian report, quoted by Elliott, tells that in 1826 

 the total number secured in the entire Aleutian chain was only 

 15, where previously more than 1,000 had been regularly taken 

 each year. In 1835 the number from this district was 70 to 

 150 annually. The natives employed in collecting these furs 

 were frequently subjected to great dangers, not only from the 

 elements but from other native tribes who were unfriendly. 

 When Alaska was purchased by the United States, writes H. 



