SALMON IN ALASKA. 29 



Salmon abound in the rivers of Alaska, the territory 

 in. North- West America which Russia ceded a few years 

 ago to the United States. So plentiful are they in the 

 spring-time as to impede, it is said, the passage of boats ; 

 and when a strong " south-easter " rises, it drives them 

 ashore, where they lie in putrescent heaps ! In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Sitka, extensive fisheries existed, and from one 

 hundred thousand to one hundred an^l fifty thousand sal- 

 mon were annually exported to the Sandwich Islands and 

 elsewhere. Immediately, says Mr. Whymper, on the 

 arrival of a boat-load of fish at the wharf, a number of 

 the poorer women, some of them Indians, arranged them- 

 selves in two long lines, and cleaned and gutted the fish 

 with wonderful expedition. A few buckets of water 

 were then thrown over the heap, and they were carried 

 to the vats, and put in brine at once, to be ready for ex- 

 portation. Each woman's payment was a large fish, 

 weighing twenty or thirty pounds, and worth just 

 nothing ! For salmon listen, ye epicures ! is the com- 

 monest of common fish in all the rivers of the North 

 Pacific, and esteemed accordingly as food fit only for those 

 unhappy individuals who can get nothing better. How 

 much it is to be desired that those abundant supplies of 

 a nutritious " comestible " could be utilized for the benefit 

 of our swarming populations in England and Scotland ! 



In the river Yukon are found at least two, and per- 

 haps three, varieties of salmon. The largest kind some- 

 times measures five feet; and boots are partly made with 

 its tough skin. They are caught all down the river in 

 weirs set in shallow places, in circular hand-nets, or by 

 spearing. A flotilla of light birch canoes may be seen 

 ascending the river in regular array ; and at a given sig- 



