ORIGIN OF ALEUTS 99 



times higher price for sea otters, martens, and foxes, 220 some of 

 which are brought to Russia by way of Anadyrsk. Therefore, if 

 the Americans themselves could smelt iron and make said articles, 

 why should they buy them at a high price from others? At the 

 same time, it is remarkable that the cossacks on the Anadyr 

 River traded with the Americans before the Kamchatka Expedi- 

 tion had obtained any knowledge of the country itself. For this 

 a two-fold reason may be advanced as regards the cossacks: (i) 

 selfishness and perjury of the commanders, (2) fear, because 

 usually the one who in these remote places suggests anything 

 new for the benefit of the Empire is compelled to carry it out 

 himself and in place of [receiving] thanks loses all his goods and 

 property. — On the other hand, the officers are too haughty to en- 

 gage in conversation with common people and too negligent and 

 incredulous even when anything is reported to them. Upon my 

 arrival in Kamchatka in the year 1740, I eagerly took pains to 

 obtain such information, questioning all newcomers, traders, 

 cossacks with the greatest friendliness, and, in case I got nothing 

 out of them with fair means, brought them to confession with 

 brandy, as the most pleasant torture. But when I had acquired 

 so much information of that kind that I could prove with more 

 than twenty conclusive reasons where the land is nearest 221 



220 Pallas has: "Seebiber, Marder und Fiichse." The MS has: "See- 

 biber, Iltiss und Fiichse." The "Marder," marten (Martes), is undoubt- 

 edly substituted by Pallas because no "Iltiss," polecat (Putorius), was 

 known from America at that time. (S) 



221 Namely opposite the Chukchi Peninsula, according to Krashenin- 

 nikov's rendering of Steller's views (Histoire et description du Kam- 

 tchatka, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1770; reference in Vol. i, pp. 398- 

 399). According to this view Steller, while believing that the two conti- 

 nents approach most closely there, thought that they are near to each 

 other throughout the whole extent from latitude 52° to 60° N., in which 

 he believed the American coast to trend southwest-northeast practically 

 parallel to the coast of Kamchatka. It is this conception that is reflected 

 in the great southwest-projecting land mass shown in the St. Petersburg 

 Academy of Sciences map mentioned, below, in footnote 223, third para- 

 graph (our Fig. 14). This nearness of the two continents led Steller to 

 believe, according to Krasheninnikov, that they were formerly connected, 



