104 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



Finally, I observed also on all these Americans that they had 

 a very scant beard, but most of them none at all, in which 

 respect they again agree with the inhabitants of Kamchatka and 

 with other East Siberian peoples.^^o 



In spite of all this there still remains to be discussed the 

 question whether these Americans may be inhabitants of the 

 mainland or only of the islands. I hold that these people do not 

 live constantly on the islands but are there only during the 

 summer and spend the winter on the mainland.^ai These people 

 may in part be attracted hither by the large numbers of birds 

 and birds' eggs, which the Kamchadals, at the greatest peril, 

 likewise gather among the cliffs, although every year some of 

 them break their necks in the attempt ;232 in part they may per- 

 haps go after whales cast up on the off-lying islands and after 

 the seals which are more numerous there, the blubber of which 

 is preferred also by the Kamchadals to all other delicacies. Their 

 return in winter to the mainland, however, is the more probable 



that everybody on the mainland opposite made use of similar ornaments, 

 facts which I have now verified with my own eyes to be as I had noted 

 them down a year before in the historical account of Chukotski Nos" 

 [Chukchi Cape]. (S) 



The historical account of the Chukchi Cape region was never pub- 

 lished, and there is no record that it ever reached the Academy. (G) 



230 The MS does not have: "and with other East Siberian peoples." 



231 Steller was mistaken; the natives did have their homes on these 

 islands. (G) 



232 The MS from this point to the end of the paragraph reads as follows: 

 "It is likewise generally known concerning Kamchatka that no food is 

 preferred to the whale and seal blubber as being more delicious; now, 

 since the seals are most numerous about these islands and since also the 

 dead whales thrown out by the sea cannot be brought to the mainland 

 because of the islands lying in the way but become stranded on them, it 

 is quite credible that they [the natives], because of this circumstance 

 alone, repair hither in summer but go to the mainland in winter. The less 

 possible it is to winter here, because of lack of wood for building and 

 fuel, the more reason there is for believing that the island on which we 

 watered is continuous in the north with America, from which all the 

 others are not very distant." 



