174 National Geographic Magazine. 
district of which this place was the dépét. The finest of the furs 
was that of the sea-otter, probably the most valuable fur in the 
world, a very superior skin of that animal having been sold at 
the great fur market in London for £170. Such otters are found 
in the vicinity of Ounalaska and the outlying rocks and islands 
as far east as Kodiak, and are becoming more and more difficult 
to obtain, causing greater risk and hardships every year to the 
Aleuts, who hunt these animals as a principal means of livelihood. 
Besides the otters the store-house held the furs of the beautiful 
silver-gray fox, and those of the blue, the cross, and the snowy 
white Arctic fox. There were also black and brown bear skins, 
beaver, and fur-seal, the latter, though the greatest and most 
profitable source of revenue to the Company, being by no manner 
of means among the more valuable of the raw furs. 
To exchange for furs collected, either directly by natives or 
by independent traders, the Alaska Commercial Company has a 
large assortment of stores, provisions, and goods, worthy of a 
large country-store, or a Macy’s in miniature, which are sold to 
the natives for money or in exchange for the furs they bring to 
the company. And just here can be seen the commercial aspects 
of civilization: as the natives become used to the luxuries and 
comforts of a civilized and semi-civilized state of life, their wants 
and their purchases increase and the securing of one otter-skin 
will not, as in times past, satisfy their wants or the requirements 
of their wives and families. Hence they become both greater 
producers and consumers, more otters are hunted for, and the 
Company is the gainer. 
The houses in which the Aleuts and Creoles reside at Ounalaska 
were found to be well built of frame, sufficiently large and fairly 
clean. The old houses of earth and sod standing near by show 
the great improvement that has been made of late years in the 
method of living. 
Upon the 22d of June the Revenue Steamer Bear came in to 
the anchorage, and the Thetis and the Bear, once companion ships 
in the Greely Relief Expedition, met again in the far north. 
Upon conference with the commanding officer of the Bear, 
Captain M. A. Healy, it was found that he did not consider it 
desirable to break the bulk of his cargo and share the stores for 
the refuge-station with us; hence, being free to pursue our 
course, we left on the 24th of June for the island of St. Paul, one 
of the Seal (or Pribyloff) islands. - 
