TABLES OF POPULATION. 



37 



few years (1888) were transferred to Bering Island, their number helping to swell the 

 total of the Commander Islands population. This was not a very desirable addition, 

 however, and has not resulted in elevating the morals of the former inhabitants. 



The other addition consists in a number of girls from Petropaulski. It was found 

 that the inbreeding of the natives on the two islands was not only having a deleterious 

 effect upon the health and vitality of the community, but intermarriage had made the 

 Inhabitants so interrelated that it was difflcult to find people who could be married at 

 all without violating the intricate laws of the Eussian Church governing marriage 

 between relatives. Under these circumstances a number of unmarried young men 

 from both islands were encouraged to go to Petropaulski and provide themselves with 

 brides. 



There is a great deal of discrepancy between the tables of the population given 

 for the various years which are very difficult to harmonize. The chief soiirces are 

 Dybovski's list (Wyspy Komand., p. 81) and that of Savitch (Otchet, 1893, p. 43), 

 but up to 1878 these disagree so much that one of them must be radically wrong. 

 Dybovski's list was, I believe, extracted by himself from the church records, and 

 seems to be the more accurate one. In the following table I have therefore adopted 

 his figures so far as they ' go. The figures for 1896 I owe to the kindness of Mr. 

 Grebnitski; those for 1860 are from Tikhmenief. 



The tables are meant to show only the native population, and not to include those 

 temporarily living there, as the administrator, his assistant, the doctor, the midwife, 

 the priests, the deacon, the kossaks, and soldiers, the company's agents, or their 

 families. They would increase the total considerably, and the entire population of 

 the Commander Islands in 1897 may therefore be set down as about 665 of both sexes, 



Native population of Commandei- Islands, 1860 to 1897. 



