THE EUSSIAN PUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
89 
By the establisliment of the great Eiissiau-Aiuericau Company, in 1790, Sbelikofs 
enterprise was merged into the larger concern, and the Commander Islands became 
j)art of what was from now on in reality a Eussian colony. The supply of fur-bearing 
animals must have become practically exhausted on the Commander Islands by that 
time, for the islands were abandoned and vessels touched but seldom, scarcely one in 
five years. In 1826, during the second term of the Eussian-American Company, a 
new district, the district of Atklia, was formed, consisting of the Commander Islands 
and the western portion of the Aleutian chain from Attu to the island of Yunaska, 
consequently including the Near Islands, the Eat Islands, and the Andreanof group. 
The agency was located on Atklia Island. 
Shortly afterwards the permanent colonization of the Commander Islands was 
undertaken, and Aleuts and half-breeds from the Andreanof Islands and from Attu 
were transferred to the new settlements on Copper and Bering islands. This was 
accomplished before 1828, in which year Admiral Liitke, in the corvette Seniavhij 
visited the latter island and communicated with the inhabitants of the settlement at 
Saranna, on the north coast.* 
Very little is known concerning the islands and the seal industry on the ishuids 
during their occupancy by the Eussian-American Company. Its jealousy of both 
foreign and domestic interference caused it to keep all details of its dealings secret, 
and as the islands were entirely away from the oixlinary line of travel, scarcely any 
outside information is to be had. The overseers were probably unimportant, possibly 
uneducated, persons, and the reports of the inspectors occasionally visiting the islands 
are probably buried in the St. Petersburg archives of the company. 
There can be no doubt that the alarming decrease iii the Pribylof catch, which in 
ten years dropped from 60,000 skins to less than 20,000, caused the company to colo- 
nize the Commander Islands in order to work the seal rookeries there. In 1821 this 
decrease was threatening enough to make the board of administration of the company 
suggest stopping killing on the Pribylofs altogether for one season, if certain islands 
which were supposed to exist north of the Pribylof Islands shoidd be found to be 
fictitious or not to harbor the hoped-for fur-seals (Fur Seal Arb., viii, p. 323). The 
discovery was evidently not made, and the reoccui)ation of the Commander Islands 
resulted. 
It seems, however, that the Greek war of independence against Turkey had a 
depressing effect on the fur market of Euroiie, and it is therefore notimi)robable that 
the Pribylof Islands were capable of filling the demand iintil the restoration of order 
in that part of the world, about 1830. By this time the annual yield of the Pribylofs 
had fallen to 16,000, and shortly after even as low as 6,000, the average during the ten 
years from 1832 to 1841, inclusive, being less than 9,700 skins a year. As I have shown 
elsewhere, this was not nearly enough to satisfy the demand, which probably averaged 
in the neighborhood of 25,000 during this period, and the deficiency was probably 
made up in the Commander Islands. 
With the destructive methods then in vogue, it is not to be wondered at if the 
Commander Islands were unable to furnish an annual quota of, say, 14,000 skins for 
any considerable length of time. The close season which Chief Manager Etholin 
asked for and probably instituted in 1843 Avas therefore very necessary. From this 
* This fact shows that Dybowski’s statement that the settlements were not established until 183C 
(Wyspy Komand., p. 36) is erroneous. 
