16 NATUKAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS IN ALASKA. 



chief man of the village told us that they would try to gather a little food for the dogs and would 

 give a dance in our honor that night if we would remain. We did so and the dog-food was forth- 

 coming. The dance proved a very interesting one, performed mainly by the women. Here a fine 

 series of ethnologic objects was secured, and our return trip began, as we learned from the natives 

 that there was absolutely no dog-food to be had farther north. The return trip along the route 

 followed in going was a very laborious one, owing to the condition of our dogs and the nearly 

 incessant storms of wind and snow that prevailed, and the heavy loads of furs and ethnologica 

 we were carrying. We finally reached Saint Michaels April 3, after having worn out three sets 

 of dogs. Those in harness at the time of our arrival were barely able to crawl along, and left 

 bloody footprints on the ice at nearly every step. The results of this expedition consisted of a fine 

 series of ethnologic specimens from all the coast visited and vocabularies of four Eskimo dialects, 

 besides geographic and other information of much value. 



November 16, 1880, in company with a fur trader, Fredricks, I left Saint Michaels, and between 

 that time and January 19, 1881, we crossed the mountains to the head of the Anvik Eiver, down 

 which we traveled to its junction with the Yukon. At this point is located the fur-trading station 

 of Anvik, which is in charge of Fredricks. Bad weather delayed us here some days, but we 

 finally got away, and traveling up the Yukon we crossed Shageluk Island and explored the coun- 

 try about the head of the Innoko River, returning thence to Anvik, and down the Yukon back to 

 Saint Michaels. On the way I stopped and witnessed'one of the great Eskimo festivals, in honor 

 of the dead, at Rasboinsky. As was the case with the other sledge journeys mentioned, the main 

 object in view was to study the ethnology of the districts visited, but the zoology and geography 

 of the route were also attended to as closely as the time and means at my disposal would allow. 

 The three main sledge expeditions mentioned, with numerous shorter ones, covered over 3,000 

 miles, and resulted in amassing a great number of specimens and a large fund of information 

 on various subjects. After the close of this expedition, until the last of June, 1881, I was busily 

 employed in completing my data and closing up my work at Saint Michaels. 



The last of June, 1881, the revenue steamer Corwin called at Saint Michaels on her way north 

 in search of the missing Jeannette. Through the courtesy of the Secretary of the Treasury, the 

 commander, Capt. C. L. Hooper, was directed to take me on board as naturalist of the expedition. 

 During the remainder of the season I was the guest of Captain Hooper and received many favors 

 at bis hands. We left Saint Michaels and sailed to Saint Lawrence Island, where the captain 

 had been instructed to land me to investigate the villages there, which had been depopulated 

 by some disease during the two preceding winters. The surf was too heavy to risk landing at 

 the desired jwints on this visit, so we passed on to Plover Bay, on the Siberian coast. Taking 

 on coal there, from a supply left by a Russian man-of-war, we passed north through Bering Straits, 

 visiting on the way all of the islands in the straits, and leaving a party on one of the Diomede 

 Islands to take observations on tides and currents. Thence we coasted the shore of Siberia to 

 North Cape, taking on board a sledge party which had been left there early in the season. We 

 then returned to Saint Lawrence Island, where a landing was effected, and a fine series of Eskimo 

 crania and other valuable specimens secured, after which we returned again to Saint Michaels. 

 There my collections were transferred to the Alaska Commercial Company's steamer St. Paul, 

 for shipment to San Francisco, and the Corwin once more returned to the Arctic. During the re- 

 mainder of the season we visited all of the Arctic coast of Alaska from the straits to Point Bar- 

 row, including Kotzebue Sound. We were the first and only party to scale the cliffs of Herald 

 Island, and were the first to reach the ice-bound shores of Wrangel Island, so long discussed by 

 geographers as a probable extension south of an Arctic continent. The severe usage undergone 

 by our staunch little vessel while in the ice-pack warned us to leave the Arctic before winter closed 

 in upon us. The middle of September we left the Arctic and, after stopping for some necessary 

 repairs at Unalaska, sailed for San Francisco. " Homeward bound" had a grateful sound to my 

 ears after my long exile of four and a half years in the north, and the timbered hills of Mendocino, 

 on the coast of California, were a welcome sight as we neared the coast the last of October. 



The material secured during my residence in the north consists of a great number of speci- 

 mens and a large amount of manuscript notes. lu addition to the present volume I have pub- 

 lished an account of the birds observed during the cruise of the Corwin in a volume of "Notes 



