462 



SCIENCE. 



[Voi,. IV., No. 93. 



the difference more marked than in the one we 

 are considering. The region of Alaska most 

 populous, and most likely to afford room for 

 settlement, and resources for development, as 

 ,well as the most interesting ethnological fea- 

 tures, was not visited by Mr. Petroff, who 

 derives his statistics of south-eastern and west- 

 ern Alaska at second or third hand, or by com- 

 pilation from already published works. 



The fact that Mr. Petroff is of Russian ex- 

 traction, had had several years' experience in 

 Alaska as a private in the U. S. army and as 

 a petty trader at the head of Cook's Inlet, and 

 had translated several Russian works for Mr. 

 H. H. Bancroft's library, gave a warrant for 

 believing that he possessed special qualifications 

 for the work assigned to him. Had the material 

 gathered by him been subjected to a thorough 

 sifting by an impartial statistician, the result 

 would have been more valuable and much more 

 reliable. At present, while the report contains 

 much that is useful, and a great accumulation 

 of facts, with some welcome translations from 

 historical Russian works, it suffers, as a work 

 of reference, from the attempt of the author 

 to cover the faunal distribution of fur animals, 

 history, philology, politics, geography, vulcan- 

 ism, ethnology, and resources, — a task for 

 which, with all due recognition of Mr. Petroff' s 

 merits, it cannot be said that lie was qualified, 

 and which has consequently been performed in 

 an often inadequate way. 



The report is illustrated by some extremely 

 poor chromolithographic pictures of scenery 

 and natives, which is the more to be regretted, 

 as good photographs exist of most of the dif- 

 ferent Alaskan races which might easily have 

 been utilized. There is a topographical and 

 ethnological map of large size, and six smaller 

 maps showing distribution of fur animals and 

 forests, and the geographical divisions adopted. 

 The plan is excellent ; but the information is 

 much more scanty than would be inferred from 

 the maps, which, in minor details, are not in 

 accord, in some cases, even with what infor- 

 mation we have. 



The topographical map has already been 

 superseded by better ones in its groundwork, 

 while the topography is necessarily mostly a 

 matter of inference and assumption. This 

 inheres in the nature of the case ; but it ma}* be 

 questioned, whether, under the circumstances, 

 such an ostentation of detail was desirable. 

 Sundry old and some new errors have been in- 

 troduced into it, the most striking of which is 

 the erroneous position of the Yukon between 

 the meridians of 140° and 145°. It is to be 

 presumed that the information upon which 



this was based was derived from the traders, 

 who desired to locate the (now abandoned) 

 trading-post of Fort Reliance on the Ameri- 

 can side of the line, to avoid international 

 questions. The earlier map of the telegraph 

 explorers, and the later running survey by 

 Schwatka, leave no doubt of the error. 



The ethnological map is in some respects an 

 advance upon those which have preceded it, 

 although not impregnable to criticism. The 

 spelling of native and Russian names is not ac- 

 cording to anj r uniform system ; and the geo- 

 graphical names represent the idiosyncrasies of 

 the author, rather than any standard charts. 

 It is particularly unfortunate that the attempts 

 of the U. S. coast-survey to unify the nomen- 

 clature, although already published on some 

 forty or fifty charts, have met with no recog- 

 nition or co-operation in this report. 



The population of the territory, derived 

 parti}* from estimation and partly from actual 

 count, is 33,425, of which about half are 

 Eskimo. The white population, including 

 Creoles, is stated at somewhat over 2,000, 

 which has since been considerably increased in 

 the south-eastern district. A valuable sum- 

 mary of several previous enumerations and 

 estimates shows that there never has been any 

 sound ground for the excessive estimates of 

 70,000 or 80,000, which are found in most 

 gazetteers. Our space will not permit a de- 

 tailed review of the various ramifications of the 

 report ; but the ethnologist may be particularly 

 cautioned against a too confident reliance on 

 the ethnology of this report as regards the 

 regions not personally inspected by Mr. Petroff, 

 several serious inaccuracies having a place 

 there. The statistics of trade in continental 

 furs since the American purchase are extremely 

 inadequate, owing to the desire of traders to 

 keep their business private, and to the unre- 

 ported arctic trade ; but for this there seems 

 no help. The collection of Russian records 

 of the fur trade by the compiler are particularly 

 valuable, though, as in all such cases, not to be 

 rated as more than reasonable approximations. 



The report on the fur-seal fisheries by Mr. 

 Elliott consists of matter several times previ- 

 ously printed, but here revised, and fully illus- 

 trated from the author's sketches. It contains 

 by far the best general account of the fur seals 

 of Alaska, together with a quantity of other 

 more or less relevant matters. The estimate 

 of the total number of seals on the islands is, 

 however, evidently much in need of a more 

 exact basis as being the crucial point upon 

 which the regulation of the fishery depends. 



Probably no report for the tenth census was 



