98 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



copper.217 On the other hand I know from quite reliable infor- 

 mation that the Chukchis traded from the second Chukchi 

 island 218 with America and that, although for some years this 

 commerce was interrupted because a misunderstanding arose, 

 this trade is still carried on by the inhabitants of the islands; the 

 principal articles are knives, axes, lances, and iron arrow points,-i^ 

 which the Chukchis acquire at a very high price from the Rus- 

 sians at Anadyrsk and exchange with the Americans at a many 



to smelt iron. They probably obtained this metal in some indirect way 

 either from the white men or from wrecked vessels. In a report of a 

 Russian hunter (about 1765) a statement is made that the Aleuts told 

 him a large ship had been driven ashore to the eastward. (G) 



Independently of this note by Dr. Golder, Mr. Hodge supplies the 

 following comment: "No American aborigines smelted iron ore; indeed, 

 iron ore was unknown until introduced by trade or found with wreckage 

 that had been cast ashore. Copper, however, was used in prehistoric 

 times." On the use of copper see also, above, footnote 99 by Dr. Brooks. 



The reader will notice that, in the journal as originally written, Steller 

 himself advances two arguments against the Hkelihood of the natives* 

 knowing how to smelt iron: (i) the obvious dullness of the tools with 

 which the trees on Kayak Island had been felled (see the next footnote) ; 

 (2) the high price which the natives of Alaska were reported to be willing 

 to pay for Russian knives secured through trade with the Chukchis. (J) 



21^ In the MS this sentence is replaced by the following: "Yet the 

 following reasons seemed to oppose this opinion: (i) If they can forge 

 knives, why should they be ignorant of how to make an ax or some 

 similar instrument for cutting down trees? However, at Cape St. Ehas 

 the felled trees, hacked to pieces with many dull cuts, demonstrated to 

 me that the Americans used axes of stone or bone like the Kamchadals, 

 though at the same time their smoothly worked arrows and also the 

 well-built hut made a different impression, namely that at least they 

 must have knives, be they iron or copper." In the MS then follows as 

 point (2) the sentence beginning "on the other hand," just as in the 

 published text. 



"8 The text reads literally "the other Chukchi island." Probably by 

 this is meant Little Diomede Island, the smaller and more easterly of 

 the two Diomede Islands, which lie midway between East Cape, Siberia, 

 and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, i.e. the narrowest part of Bering 

 Strait. (J) 



219 The words "lances, and iron arrow points" do not occur in the MS. 



