5 



the frequent indentations, is greater than that of the east- 

 ern coast-line of the United States, beine; 7,860 miles in 

 length. Its chief river, the Yukon, which rises in British 

 territory, is another Mississippi for length and volume of 

 water. Mighty mountains extend along the southern and 

 western coast, out into the peninsula which gave the terri- 

 tory its name, some of them volcanic, and many capped 

 with eternal snows. The climate of the southwestern part 

 is comparatively mild, owing to the warm current of the 

 Pacific, which also causes an excessive rain-fall. The wis- 

 dom of the purchase of the Territory as a financial measure 

 has already been strikingly vindicated in the revenue de- 

 rived from the monopoly of the catch of seals. The 

 abundance of fur-bearing animals ; the salmon and other 

 fish that teem in its rivers ; its primeval forests of cedar, 

 spruce, larch, fir, cypress and hemlock and the deposits of 

 coal and iron and other minerals that have been discovered, 

 promise to render the value of the Territory yet greater when 

 its resources shall have been more fully developed. Its cen- 

 tral and northern portions remain as yet a terra incognita for 

 the most part. The Indians who trap the animals in the 

 interior are described as treacherous and discontented, where 

 they have come in contact with whites; the Eskimos along 

 the coast of the west, northwest and north, on the other 

 hand, appear to be good-natured, though degraded and 

 very superstitious. Their belief in evil spirits and witch- 

 craft renders them an easy prey of the "shaman," who 

 figures among their tribes as does the " medicine -man " 

 among the Indians. 



Steaming out of San Francisco on May 3, the Corivin 

 reached Ounalaska on May 16, and thence the explorers 

 proceeded in the Dora, a steamer belonging to the Alaska 

 Commercial Co., across Bering Sea to the mouth of the 

 Nushagak River in Western Alaska. Here they found a 

 Greek Church whose priest claimed the district of the 

 Nushagak and Togiak Rivers as his parish. Hence they 

 proceeded in the ship to the Kuskokwim River, at the 

 mouth of which they arrived on June 12. 



Up this river they traveled for about 150 miles in two 

 large bidarkas, skin canoes each seating three persons, being 



