THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
7 
II.-THE RUSSIAN SEAL ISLANDS. 
Until the purchase of the Territory of Alaska by the United States, in 18G7, all 
the resorts of the northern fur-seal north of California belonged to the Russian 
Enii)ire, and the fur-seal industry of the Uorth Pacific was entirely monopolized l)y 
the Russian American Company. 
These resorts were in all instances uninhabited islands, and at the time of their 
discovery by the Russian fur-hunters, in the middle and latter ]>art of the last century, 
even unknown to the native races. The seals when first found on the rookeries, about 
one hundred and fifty years ago, had never been interfered with by man while on their 
breeding-grounds. The islands alluded to were the Commander group, certain small 
islands in the Okhotsk Sea, certain small islands in the Kuril chain, and the Pribylof 
group. 
In 1807 the Pribylof Islands were sold to the United States, and in 1870 Russia 
ceded the Kurils to Japan in exchange for the southern half of the island of Sakhalin. 
There remain thus, in the possession of the Russian Crown at the present date, only 
the Commander Islands and the islands in the Okhotsk Sea. 
l.-THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 
The Commander Islands (also occasionally called the Commodore Islands; Rus- 
sian, Kommulorsli Osirova), so named in memory of the great commander, Bering, 
who discovered the group, comprise two main islands, Bering and Copper, situated 
off the east coast of Kamchatka, between 51 ° 33 ' and 55° 22' north latitude, and 
165° 40' and 108° 9' east longitude, approximately 97 miles from Cape Kamchatka, the 
nearest point on the maiidand. The southeast point of Copper Island is distant from 
Attu, the nearest American island, about 180 miles, and is less than 75 miles from the 
imaginary boundary line across Bering Sea between Russia and the United States. 
The distance between Bering Island and the port of Petropaulski is somewhat more 
than 280 miles, while a straight line between the nearest i)oints of the Commander 
group and the Pribylof groui) is 750 miles. The steamer’s track between the former 
and San Francisco is something like 3,100 miles. 
Geographically the Commander Islands are the westernmost groux) of the 
Aleutian chain. Politically, however, they form a separate administrative district of 
the so-called Coast Province {Primorsl:a,ya Oblast). This enormous territory extends 
from Korea to the Arctic Ocean, and, including the xieninsula of Kamchatka, is ruled 
by the governor- general of the Amur Province, residing at Khabarovka, on the Amur 
River, moi'e than 1,200 miles, as the crow flies, from the Commander Islands. The 
administrative xmsition of these islands, however, is somewhat comxflicated, inasmuch 
as they also dex>eud directly under the Minister of the Imperial Domain in St. Peters- 
burg, 4,600 miles away. In other words, their i>ositiou corresponds very much to that 
of our Pribylof Islands, which are subject both to the governor of Alaska and to the 
Secretary of the Treasury. 
The Commander Islands were discovered on Kovember 4, 1741 (old style). On 
that day the vessel St. Peter, with the commander, Adtus Bering, and nearly the entire 
