ADMINISTRATION. 



131 



9,526. It would therefore appear that no skias were shipped in 1842 to 1846.' The 

 following is the list given by Savitch : 



Number of fur-seal sUns shipped from the Commander Islands from 1847 to 1861, inclusive. 



ADMINISTRATION. 



There remains to be said a few words concerning the Government administration 

 of the Commander Islands. 



Before the establishment of the Bussian-American Company the islands were 

 scarcely under any territorial jurisdiction, though in reality they were undoubtedly 

 subject to the rule of the "commander" of Kamchatka, a naval officer residing in 

 Petropaulski. With the adveut of the Eussian- American Company the direct control 

 of these islands went out of the hands of the Russian Government, but it seems that 

 the company took but slight interest in them until 1826, in which year they were 

 incorporated into the Atkha District, with headquarters on Atkha Island. After 

 the permanent location of a colony, a Eussian "overseer" was stationed on Bering 

 Island. 



When, in 1868, the Eussian-American Company's regime was at an end, the islands 

 returned to the jurisdiction of the ''ispravnik" in Petropaulski, while the remainder 

 of the Atkha District became part of the United States by the cession of Alaska to 

 the latter. Kamchatka being, since 1855, only a district of the so-called Coast Province 

 {Primorslcaya Oblast), the administration of the islands consequently rested with the 

 governor at Khabarovka, subject to the authority of the governor-general of Eastern 

 Siberia at Irkutsk. 



Thus things remained until the growing importance of the seal business during 

 the lease to Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippeus & Co. made it desirable to locate a higher 

 oflScial on the islands to represent the Government in its dealings with the company 

 on the islands and to govern the natives. Mr. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Grebnitski was 

 selected as the first " administrator," landing on Bering Island on August 21, 1877, 

 and has continued as such up to the present time. His long retention in office, coupled 

 with the fact that his salary has been raised repeatedly, that he has gradually risen 

 in rank until he now holds that of a colonel, and that he has been decorated several 



' See p. 97 on the close season asked for the Commander Islands in 1842 and granted in 1843, 



