92 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 55. 



but with a Birmingliain hook and a Glou- 

 cester line. In the whole of southern 

 Alaska, thanks to the schools, the children 

 and many young people speak fairly good 

 English. If the present influences con- 

 tinue, another generation will see the use 

 of English universal and the native lan- 

 guages chiefly obsolete. The day of the 

 ethnological collector is past. Southeastern 

 Alaska is swept clean of relics ; hardly a 

 shaman's grave remains inviolate. 



In other parts of the Territory the same 

 is more or less true. The native population 

 is focusing about the commercial centers. 

 The people gather where work and trade 

 afford opportunities, and I have seen more 

 than one pretentious church standing 

 empty among the abandoned houses of a 

 formerly prosperous village. There is some 

 admixture of blood in marriages between 

 the often attractive ' Creole ' women and 

 the incoming settlers. These marriages are 

 often veiy fruitful, but the pure-blooded 

 natives seem to be diminishing. The 

 Aleuts, whose census is accurately made 

 annually by the Greek Church, are dis- 

 tinctly losing ground, and will doubtless 

 pass away in a few generations. The same 

 is probably true of the Tlinkit people. As 

 we approach the Arctic region, changes of 

 all sorts are less marked and civilization 

 has had less effect. Here the subsistence 

 of the natives presents serious and increas- 

 ing difficulties. Their natural food supply 

 has been practically destroyed by the whites 

 and by repeating firearms, of which the na- 

 tives have many. The whales are almost 

 extinct, and the whaling fleet itself is nearly 

 so. The walrus preceded the whale, and 

 the hair seal has never been sufficiently 

 abundant in this region for a sole resource. 

 The chief salmon streams are or soon will 

 be monopolized by the whites near the sea, 

 and the natives of the upper Yukon will go 

 hungry. The present law allows unre- 

 stricted fishing to the natives and a close 



time of one day a week for the whites. 

 The latter hire the natives to fish during 

 the prohibited day, and so the salmon have 

 no close time. Where a salmon stream is 

 monopolized by one firm, they do not 

 usually cut their own throats \)y taking all 

 the salmon, but where there are several 

 competing firms there is little respite for 

 the fish. 



The cod fishery was for some years car- 

 ried on bj^ two competing firms, who have 

 now composed their differences. They had 

 salting stations on shore, and bought fish at 

 so much a thousand from 'fishermen, who 

 used small sailing vessels or dories and 

 fished near shore. Now it is found cheaper 

 and, for other reasons, preferfible to return 

 to the older system of fishing in the open 

 sea from a sea-going vessel, as on the banks 

 at the East. The preparation of the Alaska 

 fish has often been hasty, careless and in- 

 ferior to that done in the East; so Alaska 

 codfish, originally of equal quality, are less 

 esteemed commercially than the Eastern 

 cod. For some reason I do not understand 

 the Pacific Ocean at best offers but a small 

 market for fish under present conditions, 

 and so I look to see the codfishing industry 

 develop slowly and perhaps be the last, as it 

 is, in my opinion, the most substantial and 

 important of the resources of the Territory. 

 At present the salmon are commercially 

 more important, but unless more effectively 

 supervised and regulated they will meet 

 with the same fate as the fisheries of Cali- 

 foi'uia and the Columbia river. There 

 should be a resident inspector at every im- 

 portant fishery, and as the business is car- 

 ried on for at most two or three months in 

 the year, a vigilant inspection by a cutter 

 or fisheries vessel told off for this especial 

 work would counteract any tendency to 

 bribe the resident inspector. I have seen 

 3,500,000 pounds of canned salmon taken 

 in one season from one small stream, repre- 

 senting at least 5,000,000 pounds of eatable 



