RUSSIAN AMERICA. 



Russia claims, as already said, in virtue of the discoveries and settle- 

 ments of her subjects, and of treaties with the United States and Great 

 Britain, the whole division of the American continent, and the adjacent 

 islands, north of the latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and west of a 

 line drawn from that latitude, northward, along the highlands bordering 

 the Pacific Ocean to Mount St. Elias, and thence due north to the 

 Arctic Sea. This power also claims the whole of Asia, extending on the 

 Pacific north of the 51st parallel, all the Aleutian Islands, and all the 

 Kurile Islands, north of the latitude of 45 degrees 40 minutes. 



Of the parts of America thus claimed by Russia, the islands and the 

 coasts of the continent have been explored, and some have been surveyed 

 with care; several rivers, also, have been traced to considerable distances 

 from their mouths : the interior regions are, however, but little known, 

 and, from all accounts, they do not seem to merit the labor and expense 

 which would be required for their complete examination. Only small 

 portions of the islands are fit for agriculture, or for any purpose useful to 

 man, except fishing and hunting; the remaining territories present to the 

 eye nothing but rocks, snow, and ice. 



The exclusive use and government of all the islands and ports of 

 America above mentioned are granted by charter from the emperor of 

 Russia to a body called the Russian American Trading Company, which 

 has established on their coasts a number of forts, settlements, and factories, 

 all devoted to the purposes of the fur trade and fishery ; the coast of the 

 continent, south-west of the 58th degree of latitude, has, however, been, 

 as already mentioned, leased to the Hudson's Bay Company until the 1st 

 of June, 1850, at an annual rent, payable in furs. The inhabitants of the 

 Kurile, the Aleutian, and the Kodiak Islands are regarded as the immedi- 

 ate subjects of the company; in the service of which, every man, between 

 the ages of eighteen and fifty years, may be required to pass at least three 

 years. The natives of the country adjoining the two great bays called 

 Cook's Inlet and Prince William's Sound, are also under the control of 

 this body, and are obliged to pay an annual tax in furs, though they are not 

 compelled to enter the regular service. All the other aborigines are con- 

 sidered as independent, except that they are allowed to trade only with the 

 Russian American company. By the latest accounts, the number of Rus- 

 sian establishments was twenty-six, all situated south of Bering's Strait. 

 The immediate subjects of the company were seven hundred and thirty 

 Russians, fourteen hundred and forty-two Creoles, or children of Rus- 

 sian fathers by native mothers, and eleven thousand aborigines of the 

 Kurile, Aleutian, and Kodiak Islands ; the number of the natives in- 

 habiting the other regions cannot be ascertained, but must be very small, 

 when compared with the extent of the surface. 



The Russian American territories are politically divided into six 



