42 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 54. 



parts — one, under Frank Ketchum, taking 

 sledges with the intention of traversing the 

 unknown region on the ice and after reach- 

 ing Fort Yukon to ascend further in canoes ; 

 the other to await the break-up of the ice 

 in May and follow in the skin canoe, so as 

 to rescue the first party should they have 

 failed to carry out their plans. Both proj- 

 ects were successfully carried out and the 

 two parties reunited at Fort Yukon on the 

 29th of June, 1867. They returned by the 

 whole length of the river and reached Saint 

 Michael's on the 25th of July. Here aston- 

 ishing news awaited us : The Atlantic 

 cable was a triumphant success, the United 

 States were in negotiation for the purchase 

 of Russian America, our costly enterprise 

 was abandoned, and all hands were to take 

 ship for California. 



The collections and observations had been 

 but half completed. The natural history of 

 the Upper Yukon and the borders of ISTor- 

 ton sound had been pretty well examined, 

 but the vast delta of the Yukon, with its 

 wonderful fauna of fishes and water birds, 

 its almost unknown native tribes and 

 geographic features, remained practically 

 untouched. I immediately determined to 

 remain and devote the following year to the 

 unfinished work. An arrangement with the 

 E-ussians was made and this plan carried 

 out. In the autumn of 1868 I left Norton 

 sound for California on a trading vessel 

 and returned to civilization. 



At the time our explorations of the 

 Yukon began this immense region was 

 occupied by two or three thousand Indians, 

 many of whom had never seen a white man. 

 The Russian establishments on the Yvikon 

 were only three in number, hundreds of 

 miles apart, and chiefly manned by Creole 

 servants of the company, not over a dozen 

 at each post. An inefficient priest, with a 

 few alleged converts, conducted as a mis- 

 sion of the Greek Church the only religious 

 establishment in the whole Yukon valley. 



The industries of the region comprised 

 trapping, hunting and fishing ; the first for 

 revenue, the others for subsistence. The 

 means of navigation were birch-bark canoes 

 and small skin-boats. Once a year the 

 clumsy barkass of the Russians, loaded with 

 tea, flour and trading goods, was labori- 

 ously forced upstream to the Nulato post, 

 returning with a load of furs. The tribes 

 of Eskimo extraction occupied the lower 

 river banks from the sea to the Shageluk 

 slough, above which they were replaced by 

 Indians of the Tinneh stock. These were 

 to be found in scattered villages at various 

 points on the river or its tributaries, where 

 the abundance of fish oflered means of sub- 

 sistence. The extreme limit of population 

 was to be found at the junction with the 

 Yukon of the large river Tanana, where the 

 island of Niiklukayet was recognized as 

 neutral ground, where delegations from all 

 the tribes met in the spring for their annual 

 market of furs. Here our party had the 

 interesting experience of meeting the dele- 

 gation of Tanana Indians in full native cos- 

 tume of pointed shirts and trousers of 

 dressed deer skin adorned with black and 

 white beads, the nasal septum pierced to 

 carry an ornament of dentalium shell, their 

 long hair formed into a bundle of locks, 

 stiff with tallow, wound with beads, dusted 

 with powdered hematite and the chopped 

 down of swans. The ranks of frail birch 

 canoes were accurately aligned, and their 

 paddles rose and fell with military precision. 

 When they rounded the point of the island 

 and approached the beach, where stood the 

 first white men they had ever seen, they 

 were met by a complimentary salvo from 

 the guns of the Indians already on shore, 

 and responded by wild yells and graceful 

 waving of their paddles. 



The waters of the Tanana had never 

 known an explorer and its geography was 

 wholly unknown. Never again will it be 

 possible for an ethnologist to see upon the 



