292 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 164 



tries is still lower, being 1 to 1,406 in Saxony, and 

 1 to 1,429 in Denmark. Dr. Skrebitski's paper 

 attracted a considerable amount of attention from 

 the lay press, the Novosti remarking, ' ' We have 

 surpassed Europe not only in mental but in physi- 

 cal blindness.'' To any foreigner, however, who 

 reads the Russian medical journals, the valuable 

 original communications with which they liter- 

 ally teem would appear to indicate the reverse of 

 ' blindness/ in the Russian scientific world at all 

 events. 



BANCROFTS HISTORY OF ALASKA. 



The history of Alaska, up to the time of the 

 American purchase, has two divisions into which 

 it naturally falls, — the period of independent 

 Russian traders, fighting and competing on every 

 hand; and the period of organized monopoly, which 

 succeeded that competitive anarchy. Explora- 

 tions of a rude sort, the vices of the semi-civilized 

 Cossacks, and the rage for wealth represented by 

 sea-otter skins, went hand in hand. A myriad of 

 petty traders, bold, energetic, lustful, and avari- 

 cious, after the return of Bering's expedition, 

 swarmed upon the Aleutian Islands, trading, 

 hunting and robbing the natives, occasionally 

 being slaughtered in return. 



Of this period, with the causes which led to it, 

 and its consequences for Russia and for America, 

 Mr. Bancroft gives an extremely full and almost 

 interesting account. Parts of it are dramatic : 

 but the annals of so many petty expeditions with 

 the same object, and almost always substantially 

 similar results, cannot but be rather monotonous. 

 Though much of the material is of only approxi- 

 mate accuracy, and derived from scattered and 

 un verifiable copies of old records long destroyed, 

 Mr. Bancroft has given what would seem to be 

 by far the best account extant, and one not likely 

 to be improved upon. 



Of the second period we have also a remarkably 

 full and acceptable account of the formation, 

 fortunes, and fate of the monopoly known as the 

 Russian American company, and of Alexander 

 Baranoff , the man of all others characteristic of 

 the Russian occupation of Alaska, the Peter the 

 Great of the territory. Of history in its widest 

 sense, the grasp of underlying motives, — the re- 

 action of European politics, the growth of the 

 United States, and other large forces upon the 

 springs which governed events on the north-west 

 coast, — there is little : the volume is rather 

 materials for history, than history. But it is for 

 he Russian period a very full, and in the main 



History of Alaska, 1730-1885. By Hubert Howe Ban- 

 croft. San Fraucisco, Bancroft, 1886. 8°. 



sufficiently accurate, chronicle of events. Of the 

 period succeeding the purchase (a much more 

 difficult task) less can be said in praise. A 

 similar division of this epoch will by its future 

 historian be found applicable. The era of violent 

 and unrestrained competition in this case, how- 

 ever, lasted only two or three years ; while the 

 monopoly which succeeded, though more confined 

 in scope than that of the Russian company, does 

 not differ in its essential characters, and is still hi 

 operation. The chronicle of events since 1867 is 

 full, but by no means complete. The scientific 

 investigations, which have been a marked feature 

 in the recent development of the territory, are 

 very unequally treated, and many of them pass 

 with a bare mention ; others are ignored alto- 

 gether : while a disproportionate space is given to 

 the petty affairs of the trade-monopoly above 

 referred to. There are numerous errors of detail ; 

 and the just reprobation of misgovernment and 

 lawlessness, which the (mostly foreign) fur-traders 

 under American sovereignty should share with the 

 still viler authors of the early Russian trade, 

 seems to have been reserved for the former in 

 unreasonable proportion. This period, however, 

 is so much nearer the historian, so many of the 

 actors in it are still in the active pursuit of their 

 business, and the passions and prejudices engen- 

 dered by recent rivalry are still so hot, that histori- 

 cal impartiality is not to be expected. 



Mr. Bancroft recognizes the wealth of the terri- 

 tory, and gives an excellent account of its hardly 

 touched resources, other than the fur-trade. He 

 very justly and severely criticises the inaction of 

 congress, which has left the territory at the 

 mercy of law-breakers for more than fifteen years, 

 has only recently accorded a merely nominal 

 and almost impotent form of government, and in 

 the past has saddled upon the inhabitants, in lieu 

 of the law they had a right to, a succession of j 

 corrupt or inefficient petty officials. The book 

 has an excellent index, and numerous small 

 sketch-maps in the text. The general map of the 

 territory is bad, out of date, and in nomenclature 

 discrepant with itself and with text, beside con- 

 taining several inexcusable and wholly original 

 blunders. 



OCEANA. 



Sir Arthur Helps once said that when Lord 

 Palmerston was forming a new ministry, not so 

 very many years ago. he was at loss for a colonial 

 secretary. This name and that was suggested, 

 and thrown aside. At last the noble lord said, 



Oceana ; or, England and her colonies. By James Anthony 

 Froude. New York, Scribner, 1886. 8°. 



