22 
want of the more solid materials which, in order to be detached from the sides of the moun- 
tains or extracted from the bowels of the earth, require machines too complicated for the 
Americans to have been already able to have invented them.” 
La Perouse, another French circumnavigator of the same period 
(1785-1788), relates similar experiences among the same natives:^ 
A la Bale des Frangais (Alaska ). 
“Ils avaient I’air, ^ notre grand dtonnement, d’etre tr^s accoutum^s au traffic, et 
ils faisaicnt aussi bicn leur marchc que Ics plus habiles acheteurs d’Europe. De tous 
les articles de commerce, ils ne dcsiraient ardemment que le fer: ils acceptdrent aussi 
quelques rassades; mais ellcs servaient i)lut6t conclure un march6 qu’^ former la base 
de recharge. Ce m(5tal ne leur etait pas inconnu; ils en a\aient tous un poignard pendu 
au cou: la forme de cet instrument ressemblait h. celle du cry des Indiens; mais il n’y 
avait aucun rapport dans le manche, qui n’ctait que le prolongement de la lame, arrondie 
et sans tranchant: cette arme ^itait enterm6e dans un fourreau de peau tann(5e, et elle 
paraissait etre leur meuble le plus pr^cieux.” 
Tout nous portait h croire que les m<;taux que nous avions apergus, provenaient des 
Russes, ou des employes de la compagnie d’Hudson, ou des ndgociants ara^rieains qui 
voyagent dans rint(5ricur de rAm(5rique, ou enfin des Espagnols; mais ]c ferai voir dans 
la suite qu'il est plus probable que ces m6taux leur viennent des Russes. 
Les Am(5ricains du Port des Frangais savent forger le fer, fagonner le cuivre.” 
A publication of the Academy of Science of Petrograd^ has recently 
(1926) brought to light an early period of Russian adventure and explora- 
tion in eastern Asia and the North West Coast of America, which was not 
currently known even among historians and ethnographers. Russian 
cossacks, trappers, and fur traders, it appears, penetrated the American 
fastness nearly a century before Bering started on his spectacular explora- 
tions. To use Sternberg’s own words: “The reports of the Cossack 
Dezhnev, who discovered Bering straits a century before Bering, already 
contain a description of the American Eskimo.” The discoveries of the 
second Kamchatka expedition were far reaching. The local fur traders, 
between 1745 and 1762, extended their activities from the Alaskan penin- 
sula to the main coast of America; and, as states Sternberg, “The Russians 
came into contact not only with the Eskimo tribes, but also with the north- 
western Indians — the Tlingit and Athapascan.” Among those pioneers 
and traders were found a few men whose studies of linguistics and ethno- 
graphy are said to be remarkable, particularly Lisianski, Langsdorff, 
Khvostov, Davydov, and others. These men of science observed the 
northwestern American natives, even as far south as California, at a very 
early date, and left extensive records that are still unpublished. Thus we 
hear of “another resident among this tribe” (the Koloshes — or Tlingit) 
whose detailed description of the Tlingit was used by Lutke in his reports 
to the Russian Imperial Government. 
From these records and a few others it appears certain that the North 
West coast people were accessible to foreign influence for more than two 
hundred years, to say the least. When estimating the inroads of this 
influence upon their customs and manual arts and the rate of their pro- 
gress, we must also consider how amenable the natives were to this change. 
The American Indians from the beginning were all more or less adaptable 
to European culture, and this is what caused the downfall of their culture 
taken as a whole. But nowhere in America did they show more avidity 
^Appendix, Xo, 7. 
^See Appendix, Xo. 12. 
