THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 15 



II.-THE RUSSIAN SEAL ISLANDS. 



Until the purchase of the Territory of Alaska by the United States, in 1867, all 

 the resorts of the northern fur-seal north of California belonged to the Eussian 

 Empire, and the fur-seal industry of the !North Pacific was entirely monopolized by 

 the Eussian- American Company. 



These resorts were in all instances uninhabited islands, and at the time of their 

 discovery by the Eussian fur hunters, in the middle and latter part of the last century, 

 even unknown to the native races. The seals, when first found on the rookeries about 

 one hundred and fifty years ago, had never been interfered with by man while on their 

 breeding grounds. The islands alluded to were the Commander group, certain small 

 islands in the Okhotsk Sea, certain small islands in the Kuril chain, and the Pribilof 

 group. 



In 1867 the Pribilof Islands were sold to the United States, and in 1875 Eussia 

 ceded the Kurils to Japan in exchange for the southern half of the island of Sakhalin. 

 There remain thus in the possession of the Eussian Crown at the present date only 

 the Commander Islands and the islands in the Okhotsk Sea. 



I.-THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 



The Commander Islands (also occasionally callea the Commodore Islands j Eussian, 

 KomandorsM Ostrova), so named in memory of the great commander Bering, who 

 discovered the group, comprise two main islands, Bering and Copper, situated off the 

 east coast of Kamchatka, between 54o 33' and 55° 22' north latitude, and 165° 40' and 

 168° 9' east longitude, approximately 97 miles from Cape Kamchatka, the nearest point 

 on the mainland. The southeast point of Copper Island is distant from Attu, the 

 nearest American island, about 180 miles, and is less than 75 miles from the imaginary 

 boundary line across Bering Sea between Eussia and the United States. The distance 

 between Bering Island and the port of Petropaulski is somewhat more than 280 miles, 

 while a straight line between the nearbst points of the Commander group and the 

 Pribilof group is 750 miles. The steamer's track between the former and San 

 Francisco is something like 3,l00 miles. 



Geographically the Commander Islands are the westernmost group of the Aleutian 

 chain. Politically, however, they form a separate administrative district of the 

 so-called Coast Province {PrimorsMya Oblast). This enormous territory extends from 

 Korea to the Arctic Ocean, and, including the peninsula of Kamchatka, is ruled by 

 the governor-general of the Amur Province, residing at Khabarovka, on the Amur 

 Eiver, more than 1,200 miles, as the crow flies, from the Commander Islands. The 

 administrative position of these islands, however, is somewhat complicated, inasmuch 

 as they also depend directly under the minister of the Imperial Domain in St. 

 Petersburg, 4,600 miles away. In other words, their position corresponds very much 

 to that of our Pribilof Islands, which are subject both to the governor of Alaska and 

 to the Secretary of the Treasury. 



