Januaey 10, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



43 



Yukon such a body of absolutely primitive 

 Indians untarnished by the least breath of 

 civilization. 



Above ISTukKikayet the Yukon enters a 

 canon, known as the Lower Kamparts, above 

 which the depopulated area already alluded 

 to extends to the site of Fort Yukon, ne'ar 

 the British boundary on the Arctic circle. 



The noble stream I have described ex- 

 tends, including windings, about 1,600 miles 

 from Fort Yukon to the sea. The valley is 

 sometimes wide and low, sometimes narrow, 

 and contracted by low, wooded mountains. 

 Everywhere until the delta is approached 

 the banks are wooded. There are many 

 tributaries, none of which were then ex- 

 plored, and on either side of the main ar- 

 tery the land stretchecl unexplored for hun- 

 dreds of miles. Not another person speak- 

 ing any European tongue, except the Kus- 

 sian, was resident in all this territory dur- 

 ing the second year of my sojourn. Out- 

 side of the three trading posts, not a native 

 had ever bought a pound of flour or an 

 ounce of tea. The use of woolen clothing 

 had hardly begun, and soap was a rare and 

 costly luxury. I made the first candles 

 ever molded on the Yukon, and but for 

 the lack of hardwood ashes to furnish al- 

 kali would have tried my hand at soap. 

 People lived on game and fish. The caribou 

 was plentiful in the absence of rifles ; the 

 moose was not yet exterminated; the warm 

 days of spring brought incalculable multi- 

 tudes of ducks and geese, to say nothing of 

 other water fowl ; the Arctic rabbit and the 

 ptarmigan were a constant resource, and 

 the rivers and lakes in many places teemed 

 with fish. Clothing was made of deerskin 

 and sewed with sinew; the ornaments were 

 fringes from the gray wolf or wolverine. 

 Undergarments were occasionally made of 

 cotton bought from the traders, but more 

 usually from the skins of fawns. At one 

 village during the season for taking them I 

 saw 4,300 fawn skins hanging up to dry. 



Such reckless destruction has since borne 

 its natural fruit. It was only at certain 

 localities even then that deer were plenti- 

 ful. The main staple of subsistence was 

 fish. During the summer the river was 

 studded with traps for salmon; in winter 

 the traps were set in the ice, and under 

 favorable conditions furnished a steady sup- 

 ply of white-fish, burbot, pike, grayling and 

 the great red sucker. The salmon were 

 cleaned, split into three parts connected at 

 the tail, and dried in the open air by mil- 

 lions; they furnished food for man and dog, 

 and when well cured were not unpalatable. 

 Vegetable food was almost unknown, ex- 

 cept in the form of berries. The green 

 flower stalks of Rumex and Archangelica 

 were occasionally eaten, and the dwellers 

 by the sea sometimes gathered dulse, but 

 for practical purposes the diet was meat 

 and fish. 



It was known that gold existed in the 

 sands of the river, but the inexperienced 

 fur traders looked for it in the bars of the 

 main river and not in the side canons of 

 small streams, where it has since been found 

 in such abundance. The real riches of the 

 Yukon valley then lay in its furs. In a 

 garret at Fort Yukon the post trader 

 showed me with pardonable pride 300 silver 

 fox skins of the first quality. Beautiful in 

 themselves and for what they represented 

 — gold, praises, and promotion in the ser- 

 vice — one might almost forget that some of 

 the company's servants at this post had not 

 tasted bread or butter, sugar or tea for seven 

 long years. 



The region of the delta was, and is still, 

 remarkable as being the breeding place of 

 myriads of water fowl, some of which are 

 peculiar to the Alaskan region. Nearly 

 one hundred species gather there, and one 

 of them comes all the way from North Aus- 

 tralia, by the coasts of China and Japan, to 

 lay its eggs and rear its young in the Yukon 

 delta. It is also remarkable for the abun- 



