THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 



149 



were under the same rule as that I have just described as applicable to the natives ; their lot, according to 

 Paul von Krusenstern, a Eussiau who voyaged thither in 1804-1805, seems to have been more uninviting even 

 tban that of the wretched natives. 



BARANOV'S ATTEMPT TO COLONIZE CALIFORNIA. Prior to 1812, Sitka was the extreme southern limit of the 

 Russian-American Company. But old Barauov, greatly annoyed over the loss of supply ships from the Okotsk, by 

 which their bread, at Kadiak and Sitka, was cut off for years at a time, determined to settle at some place south, 

 where these necessaries to a comfortable physical existence could be raised from the soil ; so he asked of the 

 Spanish governor at Monterey permission to erect a few houses on the shore of the small bay at Bodega, California, 

 in order to "procure and salt the meat of the wild cattle" which overran that part of the country, north of the 

 harbor of San Francisco, for the " use of the governor's table at New Archangel" (Sitka). The Castilian was happy 

 to oblige a peer; but, in the lapse of three or four years after this permit was granted, the Russians had formed a 

 large settlement, built a fort, and had, in actuality, taken possession of the country. The Spanish governor first 

 remonstrated, then commanded Baranov to move off, in the name of his most Catholic majesty, the king of Spain. 

 He discovered quickly, to his infinite chagrin, that the Russian had abused his confidence, and defied him. The 

 Spaniard could not enforce his order, and Kuskov, the Russian deputy in charge at Bodega, openly taunted and 

 resisted him. The Russian-American Company remained here practically unmolested, until 1842, when they sold 

 their fixtures to General Sutter, a Swiss American, for $30,000, and vacated California. 



ATTEMPT TO SECUEE THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. In 1815 Baranov, instead of feeling chilled by the California 

 unpleasantness, then in full headway, turned his ambitions eyes to the Sandwich islands, and actually despatched 

 a vessel, or rather two of them, under the direction of Dr. Shaeffer, a German surgeon, who landed on Atooi, with 

 cue hundred picked Aleuts ; but they were, at the lapse of a year, so discouraged by the open opposition of the 

 Russian government to this scheme, that they abandoned the project. 



RAPID DECAY OF THE RUSSIAN- AMERICAN COMPANY AFTER THE DEATH OF BARANOV. In 1862, when the 

 third extension of the twenty years' lease had expired, the affairs of the Russian-American Company were in a bad 

 condition financially deeply in debt, and the Imperial government was not disposed to renew the charter. This 

 state of affairs gave rise, in 1864-'67, to negotiation with other trading organizations for the lease, which finally 

 culminated in the purchase of Alaska by our government July, 1867. Such, in brief, was the Russian-American 

 Company ; it flourished under Baranov, but declined steadily to bankruptcy twenty years after his removal, when 

 eighty years old, on account of extreme age, in 1818. In short, its great compeer, the Hudson Bay Company, was 

 very much earlier initiated in the same manner June, 1670; then it finally organized with the Northwest Company 

 under its present title, with renewed royal prerogatives and despotic sway over all British North America in 1821 ; 

 it too has declined to a commercial cipher to-day, with its autocratic rights abob'shed long since ; in 1857, I think ; 

 they were wholly rescinded; its subsidence was due, however, to the constant increasing white settlement of its 

 territory. 



33. METEOROLOGICAL ABSTRACT FOR THE MONTHS, FROM SEPTEMBER, 1872, TO APRIL, 1873, 



INCLUSIVE. 



[Being interesting as the exhibit of an unusually severe winter. Made by Chas. P. Fish, United States Signal Service, St. Paul island.] 



