38 GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIAN AMERICA. 



which it is separated by the Strait of Schelikof, and containing, on its 

 north-east side, St. Paul's, an inconsiderable place, formerly the capital 

 of Russian America. North of Kodiak, an arm of the ocean, called by 

 the English Cook's Inlet, and by Russians the Gulf of Kenay, stretches 

 northwardly into the continent nearly two hundred miles; east of which, 

 and separated from it by a peninsula, is another great bay, called Prince 

 William's Sound, or the Gulf of Tschugatsch, containing a number of 

 islands ; and still farther east is Comptroller's Bay, into which empties 

 Copper River, the largest stream flowing from this part of America. 

 Each of these bays was minutely examined by Cook, in 1778, and by 

 Vancouver, in 1794, while in search of a passage to the Atlantic; and 

 several good harbors were thus discovered, on the shores of which the 

 Russians have formed trading establishments. 



The most remarkable natural feature of this part of America is, how- 

 ever, the great volcanic peak of Mount St. Elias, which rises from the 

 shore of the Pacific, under the 61st parallel of latitude, to the height of 

 more than seventeen thousand feet above the ocean level. Near it, on the 

 south-east, is Mount Fairweather, only two thousand feet less in elevation; 

 and between the two peaks lies Admiralty, or Bering's, or Yakutat Bay, 

 where the Russian navigators Bering and Tchirikof are supposed to 

 have first anchored on their voyage of discovery from Kamtchatka, 

 in 1741. 



The peninsula of Aliaska is a chain of lofty volcanic mountains, 

 stretching through the Pacific from the latitude of 59 degrees south-west- 

 ward to that of 54 degrees 40 minutes. The most elevated peak, called 

 Mount Scheschaldin, is frequently in action, throwing forth large quanti- 

 ties of lava and ashes. Near the southern extremity of the peninsula, on 

 the east, is the group of small islands, called the Schumagin Islands; and 

 from the same extremity, as if in continuation of the peninsula, the Aleu- 

 tian Islands extend, at short distances apart, in a line nearly due westward, 

 more than six hundred miles, to the vicinity of Kamtchatka. 



The Aleutian Islands include two districts of the Russian American 

 possessions. The easternmost and largest islands of the archipelago, 

 called the Fox Islands, among which areUnimak, Unalashka, and Umnak, 

 and the small group of the Pribulow Islands, lying a little farther north 

 and west of Aliaska, form the district of Unalashka. The district of 

 Atcha comprises the other islands, which are small, and are divided into 

 three groups, called the Rat, the Andreanowsky, and the Commodore 

 Islands. These islands are all mountains, rising above the sea, some of 

 them, to a great height: only the larger ones are inhabited, or indeed 

 habitable ; the others are visited at certain periods by the Russian hunt- 

 ers and fishermen, in search of the animals which abound on their shores. 

 The principal settlement is Uliluk, on the Bay of Samagoondha, in the 

 north-east part of Unalashka, which is also the residence of a bishop of 

 the Greek church. 



The northern, or Michaelof, district includes all the territories and 

 islands of America, north of Aliaska, bordering on the division of the 

 Pacific, called the Sea of Kamtchatka, which extends from the Aleutian 

 Islands to Bering's Strait : the only establishments, however, are those 

 on the shores of the great gulf of that sea, called Norton's Sound, south 

 of the 64th parallel of latitude. The principal of these establishments 

 is Fort. St. Michael, near Stuart's Island, to which furs, skins, oil, and 



