ALASKA AS IT WAS AND IS. 
125 
and the determination of its relations to the fauna of Siberia 
and Japan. The group of young zoologists which gathered 
about him at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, an institu¬ 
tion of which Kennicott was practically the creator, was 
frequently roused to enthusiasm by impromptu lectures on 
the problems to be solved, the specimens to be collected, and 
the adventures to be anticipated in that virgin territory. 
The need of the telegraph company for one familiar with 
life and conditions in the north brought him the long sought 
opportunity, and he undertook to lead the exploration, pro¬ 
vided he was permitted to utilize it for science to the fullest 
extent commensurate with the attainment of the objects of 
the expedition. He stipulated that he should be permitted 
to select a party of six persons who should be qualified to 
make scientific observations and collections in the intervals 
of other work, but who should hold themselves ready to do 
any work required by the promoters of the enterprise, even 
to digging post-holes for the line if called upon. 
His terms were accepted, and the scientific corps of the 
expedition organized and started for San Francisco. Here 
two of the members were detailed to join the part}' engaged 
in exploring the route through British Columbia; the others, 
of whom the speaker was one, accompanied Kennicott to the 
north. 
In July, 1865, the expedition entered the bay of Sitka and 
our acquaintance with Russian America began. 
Sitka was then a stockaded towm of about 2000 inhab¬ 
itants, with a village of more than 1500 Indians outside 
the walls. The settlement contained a Greek church, a 
Lutheran chapel, shipyards, warehouses, barracks, a club¬ 
house for the officers, a sawmill, a foundry where brass, 
copper, and iron castings of moderate size were made, beside 
numerous dwellings. All the buildings were log structures, 
their outer walls washed with yellow T ochre, the roofs chiefly 
of metal painted red. High above the rest, on an elevated 
rock, rose a large building, in w T hich the governor of the 
Russian colonies had his residence. This, known to visitors 
