For generations they have been warriors, prompt to take offence, and vindictive, as is the nature of the Indian race,—always ready to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This character has not changed. As was the case once in Italy, the dagger is an inseparable companion. Private quarrels are common. The duel is an institution. So is slavery still,—having a triple origin in war, purchase, or birth. The slave is only a dog, and must obey his master in all things, even to taking the life of another. He is without civil rights; he cannot marry or possess anything; he can eat only offal; and his body, when released by death, is thrown into the sea. A chief sometimes sacrifices his slaves, and then another chief seeks to outdo his inhumanity. All this is indignantly described by Sir Edward Belcher and Sir George Simpson. But a slave once a freedman has all the rights of a Koloschian. Here, too, are the distinctions of wealth. The rich paint their faces daily; the poor renew the paint only when the colors begin to disappear.
These are the same people who for more than a century have been a terror on this coast. It was Koloschians who received the two boats’ crews of the Russian discoverer in 1741, as they landed in one of its wooded coves, and no survivor returned to tell their fate. Theywere actors in another tragedy at the beginning of the century, when the Russian fort at Sitka was stormed and its defenders put to death, some with excruciating torture. Lisiansky, whose visit was shortly afterward, found them “a shrewd and bold, though a perfidious people,” whose chiefs used “very sublime expressions,” and swore oaths, like that of Demosthenes, “by their ancestors, by relatives living and dead, and called heaven, earth, the sun, moon, and stars to witness for them, particularly when they meant to deceive.”[80]According to D’Wolf, “both sexes are expert in the use of fire-arms,” and he saw them bathing in the sea with the thermometer below freezing, running over the ice, and “performing all manner of antics with the same apparent enjoyment as if it had been a warm spring.”[81]The fort has been repeatedly threatened by these warriors, who multiply by reinforcements from the interior, so that the governor in 1837 reported, that, “although seven hundred only were now in the neighborhood, seven thousand might arrive in a few hours.”[82]A little later their character was recognized by Sir George Simpson, when he pronounced them “numerous, treacherous, and fierce,” in contrast with Aleutians, whom he describes as “peaceful even to cowardice.”[83]And yet this fighting race is not entirely indocile, if we may credit recent report, that its warriors are changing to traders.
3.Climate.—From Population I pass to Climate, which is more important, as it is a constant force. Climate is the key to this whole region. It is the governing power which rules production and life, forNature and man must each conform to its laws. Here at last the observations of science give to inquiry a solid support.
Montesquieu has some famous chapters on the influence of climate over customs and institutions.[84]Conclusions regarded in his day as visionary or far-fetched are now unquestioned truth. Climate is a universal master. But nowhere, perhaps, does it appear more eccentric than in the southern portion of Russian America. Without a knowledge of climatic laws, the weather here would seem like a freak of Nature. But a brief explanation shows how all its peculiarities are the result of natural causes which operate with a force as unerring as gravitation. Heat and cold, rain and fog, to say nothing of snow and ice, which play such a part, are not abnormal, but according to law.
This law has been known only of late years. Even so ingenious an inquirer as Captain Cook notices the mildness of the climate, without attempting to account for it. He records, that, in his opinion, “cattle might subsist in Oonalaska all the year round without being housed”;[85]and this was in latitude 53° 52´, on the same parallel with Labrador, and several degrees north of Quebec; but he stops with a simple statement of the suggestive fact. This, however, was inconsistent with the received idea at the time. A geographer, who wrote a few years before Cook sailed, has a chapter in which, assuming that the climate of Quebec continues across the continent, he argues that America is colder than Asia. I refer to the “Mémoires Géographiques” of Engel.[86]He would have been astonished, had he seen the revelations of an isothermal map, showing precisely the reverse: that the climate of Quebec does not continue across the continent; that the Pacific coast of our continent is warmer than the corresponding Atlantic coast; and that America is warmer than Asia, so far at least as can be determined by the two opposite coasts. Such is the truth, of which there are plentiful signs. The Flora on the American side, even in Behring Strait, is more vigorous than that on the Asiatic side, and the American mountains have less snow in summer than their Asiatic neighbors. Among many illustrations of the temperature, I know none more direct than that furnished by the late Hon. William Sturgis, of Boston,—who was familiar with the Northwest Coast at the beginning of the century,—in a lecture on the Oregon question in 1845. After remarking that the climate there is “altogether milder and the winter less severe than in corresponding latitudes on this side the continent,” he proceeds to testify, that, as a proof of its mildness, he had “passed seven winters between the latitudes of 51° and 57°, frequently lying so near the shore as to have a small cable fast to the trees upon it, and only once was his ship surrounded by ice sufficiently firm to bear the weight of a man.”[87]But this intelligent navigator assigns no reason. To the common observer it seemed as if the temperature grew milder, travelling with the sun until it dipped in the ocean.
Among authorities open before me I quote two, which show that this difference of temperature between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was imagined, if not actually recognized, during the last century. Portlock, theEnglishman, who was on the coast in 1786, after saying that during stormy and unsettled weather the air had been mild and temperate, remarks that he is “inclined to think that the climate here is not so severe as has been generally supposed.”[88]La Pérouse, the Frenchman, whose visit was the same year, having been before in Hudson’s Bay, on the other side of the continent, says still more explicitly, “The climate of this coast seemed to me infinitely milder than that of Hudson’s Bay, in the same latitude. We measured pines six feet in diameter and a hundred and forty feet high; those of the same species at Fort Prince of Wales and Fort York are of a dimension scarcely sufficient for studding-sail booms.”[89]Langsdorff, when at Sitka in 1805-6, was much with D’Wolf, the American navigator, and records the surprise of the latter “at finding the cold less severe in Norfolk Sound than at Boston, Rhode Island, and other provinces of the United States, which lie more to the south.”[90]D’Wolf, in his own work, says: “January brought cold, but not severe weather”; and in February, the weather, though “rather more severe than the previous month,” was “by no means so cold as in the United States, latitude 42°.”[91]
All this is now explained by known forces in Nature. Of these the most important is a thermal current in the Pacific, corresponding to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. The latter, having its origin in the heated waters of the Gulf of Mexico, flows as a river through the ocean northward, encircling England, bathingNorway, and warming all within its influence. A similar stream in the Pacific, sometimes called the Japanese Current, having its origin under the equator near the Philippines and the Moluccas, amid no common heats, after washing the ancient empire of Japan, sweeps north, until, forming two branches, one moves onward to Behring Strait, and the other bends east, along the Aleutian Islands, and then south, along the coast of Sitka, Oregon, and California. Geographers have described this “heater,” which in the lower latitudes is as high as 81° of Fahrenheit, and even far to the north as high as 50°. A chart in Findlay’s “Pacific Ocean Directory” portrays its course, as it warms so many islands and such an extent of coast. An officer of the United States Navy, Lieutenant Bent, in a paper before the Geographical Society of New York, while exhibiting the influence of this current in mitigating the climate of the Northwest Coast, mentions that vessels on the Asiatic side, becoming unwieldy with accumulations of ice on the hull and rigging, run over to the higher latitude on the American side and “thaw out.” But the tepid waters which melt the ice on a vessel must change the atmosphere, wherever they flow.
I hope you will not regard the illustration as too familiar, if I remind you that in the economy of a household pipes of hot water are sometimes employed in tempering the atmosphere by heat carried from below to rooms above. In the economy of Nature these thermal currents are only pipes of hot water, modifying the climate of continents by carrying heat from the warm cisterns of the South into the most distant places of the North. So also there are sometimes pipes of hot air, having a similar purpose; and these, too,are found in this region. Every ocean wind, from every quarter, traversing the stream of heat, takes up the warmth and carries it to the coast, so that the oceanic current is reinforced by an aërial current of constant influence.
These forces are aided essentially by the configuration of the Northwest Coast, with a lofty and impenetrable barricade of mountains, by which its islands and harbors are protected from the cold of the North. Occupying the Aleutian Islands, traversing the peninsula of Alaska, and running along the margin of the ocean to the latitude of 54° 40´, this mountain-ridge is a climatic division, or, according to a German geographer, a “climatic shed,” such as perhaps exists nowhere else in the world. Here are Alps, some of them volcanic, with Mount St. Elias higher than Mont Blanc, standing guard against the Arctic Circle. So it seems even without the aid of science. Here is a dike between the icy waters of Behring Sea and the milder Southern Ocean. Here is a partition between the treeless northern coast and the wooded shores of the Kenaians and Koloschians. Here is a fence which separates the animal kingdom, having on one side the walrus and ice-fox from the Frozen Ocean, and on the other side the humming-bird from the tropics. I simply report the testimony of geography. And now you will not fail to observe how by this configuration the thermal currents of ocean and air are left to exercise their climatic power.
One other climatic incident here is now easily explained. Early navigators record the prevailing moisture. All are enveloped in fog. Behring names an island Foggy. Another gives the same designation toa cape at the southern extremity of Russian America. Cook records fog. La Pérouse speaks of rain and continued fog in the month of August. And now visitors, whether for science or business, make the same report. The forests testify also. According to physical geography, it could not be otherwise. The warm air from the ocean, encountering the snow-capped mountains, would naturally produce this result. Rain is nothing but atmosphere condensed and falling in drops to the earth. Fog is atmosphere held in solution, but so far condensed as to become visible. This condensation occurs, when the air is chilled by contact with a colder atmosphere. These very conditions occur on the Northwest Coast. The ocean air, coming in contact with the elevated range, is chilled, until its moisture is set free.
Add to these influences, especially at Sitka, the presence of mountain masses and of dense forests, all tending to make the coast warmer in winter and colder in summer than it would otherwise be.
Practical observation verifies these conclusions of science. Any isothermal map is enough for our purpose; but there are others which show the relative conditions generally of different portions of the globe. I ask attention to those of Keith Johnston, in his admirable Atlas. But I am glad to present a climatic table of the Pacific coast in comparison with the Atlantic coast, recently compiled, at my request, from the archives of the Smithsonian Institution, with permission of its learned secretary, by a collaborator of the Institution, who visited Russian America under the auspices of the Telegraph Company. By this table we are able to comprehend the relative position of this region in the physical geography of the world.
It is seen here that the winters of Sitka are relatively warm, not differing much from those of Washington; but the summers are colder. The mean temperature of winter is 32.30°, while that of summer is 53.37°. The Washington winter is 33.57°; the Washington summer is 73.07°. These points exhibit the peculiarities of this coast,—warm winters and cool summers.
The winter of Sitka is milder than that of many European capitals. It is much milder than that of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, or Bern. It is milder even than that of Mannheim, Stuttgart, Vienna, Sebastopol in the Crimea, or Turin. It is not much colder than that of Padua. According toobservations at Sitka in 1831, it froze only two days in December and seven days in January. In February, the longest frost lasted five days; in March, it did not freeze during the day at all, and rarely in the night. During the next winter, the thermometer did not fall below 21° Fahrenheit; in January, 1834, it reached 11°. On the other hand, a temperature of 50° has been noted in January. The roadstead is open throughout the year, and only a few landlocked bays are frozen.
The prevailing dampness at Sitka renders a residence there far from agreeable, although it does not appear injurious to health. England is also damp; but Englishmen boast that theirs is the best climate of the world. At Sitka the annual fall of rain is about ninety inches. The mean annual fall in all England is forty inches, although in mountainous districts of Cumberland and Westmoreland the fall amounts to ninety and even one hundred and forty inches. In Washington it is forty-one inches. The forests at Sitka are so wet that they will not burn, although frequent attempts have been made to set them on fire. The houses, which are of wood, suffer from constant moisture. In 1828 there were twenty days when it rained or snowed continuously; one hundred and twenty when it rained or snowed part of the day, and only sixty-six days of clear weather. Some years, only forty bright days have been counted. Hinds, the naturalist, records only thirty-seven “really clear and fine days.”[92]A scientific observer who was there last year counted sixty. A visitor for fourteen days found only two when nautical observations could be made; but these were as fine as he had ever known in any country.
The whole coast from Sitka to the peninsula of Alaska seems to have the same continuous climate, whether in temperature or moisture. The island of Kadiak and the recess of Cook’s Inlet are outside this climatic curve, so as to be comparatively dry. Langsdorff reports winters “frequently so mild in the low parts of Kadiak that the snow does not lie upon the ground for any length of time, nor is anything like severe cold felt.”[93]Belcher, on his passage between Montague and Hinchinbrook Islands, found an “oppressively hot sun.”[94]The Aleutian Islands, further west, are somewhat colder than Sitka, although the difference is not great. The summer temperature is seldom above 66°; the winter temperature is more seldom as low as 2° below zero. The snow falls about the beginning of October, and is seen sometimes as late as the end of April; but it does not remain long on the surface. The mean temperature of Oonalaska is about 40°. Chamisso found the temperature of spring-water at the beginning of the year 38.50°. There are years when it rains on this island the whole winter. The fogs prevail from April till the middle of July, when for the time they are driven further north. The islands northward toward Behring Strait are proportionately colder; but I remind you that the American coast is milder than the opposite coast of Asia.
From Mr. Bannister I have an authentic statement with regard to the temperature north of the Aleutians, as observed by himself in the autumn of 1865 and the months following. Even here the winter does not seem so terrible as is sometimes imagined. During most of the time, work could be done with comfort in the openair. Only when it stormed the men were kept within doors. In transporting supplies from St. Michael’s to Nulato, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, they found no hardship, even when obliged to bivouac in the open air.
On Norton Sound and the Kwichpak River winter may be said to commence at the end of September, although the weather is not severe till the end of October. The first snow falls about the 20th or 25th of September. All the small ponds and lakes were frozen early in October. The Kwichpak was frozen solid about the 20th or 25th of this month. On the 1st of November the harbor at St. Michael’s was still open, but on the morning of the 4th it was frozen solid enough for sledges to cross on the ice. In December there were two thaws, one accompanied by rain for a day. The snow was about two feet deep at the end of the month. January was uniformly cold, and it was said that at a place sixty-five miles northeast of St. Michael’s the thermometer descended to 58° below zero. February was usually mild all over the country. In the middle of the month there was an extensive thaw, with showers of rain. About half the snow disappeared, leaving much of the ground bare. March was pleasant, without very cold weather. Its mean temperature was 20°; its minimum was 3° below zero. Spring commences on the Kwichpak the 1st of May, or a few days later, when the birds return and vegetation begins. The ice did not entirely disappear from the river till after the 20th of May. The sea-ice continued in the bay of St. Michael’s as late as 1st June. The summer temperature is much higher in the interior than on the coast. Parties travelling on the Kwichpak in June complained sometimes of heat.
The river Yukon, which, flowing into the Kwichpak, helps to swell that stream, is navigable for at least four, if not five, months in the year. The thermometer at Fort Yukon is sometimes at 65° below zero of Fahrenheit, and for three months of a recent winter it stood at 50° below zero without variation. In summer it rises above 80° in the shade; but a hard frost occurs at times in August. The southwest wind brings warmth; the northeast wind brings cold. Some years, there is no rain for months; and then, again, showers alternate with sunshine. The snow packs hard at an average of two and a half feet deep. The ice is four or five feet thick; in a severe winter it is six feet thick. Life at Fort Yukon, under these rigors of Nature, although far from inviting, is not intolerable.
Such is the climate of this extensive region, so far as known, along its coast, among its islands, and on its great rivers, from its southern limit to its most northern ice, with contrasts and varieties such as Milton describes:—
“For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,Strive here for mastery.”
“For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,Strive here for mastery.”
“For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery.”
4.Vegetable Products.—Vegetable products depend upon climate. They are determined by its laws. Therefore what has been already said upon the one prepares the way for the consideration of the other; and here we have the reports of navigators and the suggestions of science.
From the time this coast was first visited, navigators reported the aspects which Nature assumed. But their opportunities were casual, and they necessarily confined themselves to what was most obvious. As civilizationdid not exist, the only vegetable products were indigenous to the soil. At the first landing, on the discovery of the coast by Behring, Steller found among the provisions in one of the Indian cabins “a sweet herb dressed for food in the same manner as in Kamtchatka.” That “sweet herb” is the first vegetable production of which we have record on this coast. At the same time, although ashore only six hours, this naturalist “gathered herbs, and brought such a quantity to the ship that the describing of them took him a considerable time.” This description was afterwards adopted by Gmelin in his “Flora Sibirica.”[95]
Trees were noticed even before landing. They enter into descriptions, and are often introduced to increase the savage wildness of the scene. La Pérouse doubts “if the deep valleys of the Alps and the Pyrenees present a scene so frightful, but at the same time so picturesque that it would deserve to be visited by the curious, if it were not at one of the extremities of the earth.”[96]Lisiansky, as he approached the coast of Sitka, records that “nothing presented itself to the view but impenetrable woods, reaching from the water-side to the very tops of the highest mountains”; that he “never saw a country so wild and gloomy; it appeared more adapted for the residence of wild beasts than of men.”[97]Lütke portrays the “savage and picturesque aspect” of the whole Northwest Coast.[98]
As navigators landed, they saw Nature in detail; and here they were impressed by the size of the trees. Cook finds at Prince William Sound “Canadian and spruce pine, and some of them tolerably large.”[99]La Pérousedescribes pines measuring six feet in diameter and one hundred and forty feet in height, and then again introduces us to “those superb pines fit for the masts of our largest vessels.”[100]Portlock notices in Cook’s Inlet “wood of different kinds in great abundance, such as pine, black-birch, witch-hazel, and poplar; many of the pines large enough for lower masts for a ship of four hundred tons burden”; and then again at Prince William Sound “trees of the pine kind, some very large; a good quantity of alder; a kind of hazel, but not larger than will do for making handspikes.”[101]Meares reports “woods thick,” also “the black-pine in great plenty, capable of making excellent spars.”[102]Sauer, who was there a little later, in the expedition of Billings, reports that they “took in a number of fine spars”; and he proceeds to say: “The timber comprised a variety of pines of an immense thickness and height, some extremely tough and fibrous, and of these we made our best oars.”[103]Vancouver mentions, in latitude 60°, a “woodland country.”[104]Langsdorff describes trees in the neighborhood of Sitka, many of them measuring six feet in diameter and one hundred and fifty feet in height, “excellent wood for ship-building and masts.”[105]Lisiansky says, that, at Kadiak, “for want of fir, we made a new bowsprit of one of the pine-trees, which answered admirably.”[106]Lütke testifies to the “magnificent pine and fir” at Sitka, adding what seems an inconsistent judgment with regard to its durability.[107]Belcher notices Garden Island, in latitude 60° 21´, as “covered with pine-trees”; and then again, at Sitka, speaks of “a veryfine-grained, bright yellow cypress” as the most valuable wood, which, besides being used in boats, was exported to the Sandwich Islands, in return especially for Chinese goods.[108]
Turning westward from Cook’s Inlet, the forests on the sea-line are rarer, until they entirely disappear. The first settlement on the island of Kadiak was on the southwestern coast; but the want of timber caused its transfer to the northeastern coast, where are “considerable forests of fine tall trees.”[109]But where trees are wanting, grass seems to abound. This is the case with Kadiak, the peninsula of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands generally. Of these, Oonalaska, libelled in the immortal verse of Campbell, has been the most described. This well-known island is without trees; but it seems singularly adapted to the growth of grass, which is often so high as to impede the traveller and to overtop even the willows. The mountains themselves are for a considerable distance clothed with rich turf. One of these scenes is represented in a print you will find among the views of the vegetation of the Pacific in the London reproduction of the work of Kittlitz. This peculiarity was first noticed by Cook, who says, with a sailor’s sententiousness, that he did not see there “a single stick of wood of any size,” but “plenty of grass, which grows very thick and to a great length.”[110]Lütke records, that, after leaving Brazil, he met nothing so agreeable as the grass of this island.
North of the peninsula of Alaska, on Behring Sea, the forests do not approach the coast, except at theheads of bays and sounds, although they abound in the interior, and extend even to within a short distance of the Frozen Ocean. Such is the personal testimony of a scientific observer recently returned from this region. In Norton Sound, Cook, who was the first to visit it, reports “a coast covered with wood, an agreeable sight,” and, on walking into the country, small spruce-trees, “none of them above six or eight inches in diameter.” A few days afterward “a party of men were sent on shore to cut brooms, and the branches of spruce-trees for brewing beer.”[111]On the Kwichpak, and its affluent, the Yukon, trees are sometimes as high as a hundred feet. The supply of timber at St. Michael’s is from the drift-wood of the river. Near Fort Yukon, at the junction of the Porcupine and Yukon, are forests of pine, poplar, willow, and birch. The pine is the most plentiful; but the small islands in the great river are covered with poplar and willow. Immense trunks rolling under the fort show that there must be large trees nearer the head-waters.
But even in northern latitudes the American coast is not without vegetation. Grass takes the place of trees. At Fort Yukon, in latitude 67°, there is “a thin, wiry grass.” Navigators notice the contrast between the opposite coasts of the two continents. Kotzebue, while in Behring Strait, where the two approach each other, was struck by black, mossy rocks frowning with snow and icicles on the Asiatic side, while on the American side “even the summits of the highest mountains were free from snow,” and “the coast was covered with a green carpet.”[112]But the contrast with the Atlantic coast of the continent is hardly less. The northern limit oftrees is full seven degrees higher in Russian America than in Labrador. In point of fact, on the Atlantic coast, in latitude 57° 58´, which is nearly that of Sitka, there are no trees. All this is most suggestive.
Next after trees, early navigators speak oftenest of berries, which they found in profusion. Not a sailor lands who does not find them. Cook reports “a variety of berries” at Norton Sound, and “great quantities” at Oonalaska.[113]Portlock finds at Prince William Sound “fruit-bushes in great abundance, such as bilberry-bushes, raspberry-bushes, strawberries, elder-berry-bushes, and currant-bushes, red and black,” and “any quantity of the berries might be gathered for a winter’s stock.”[114]Meares saw there “a few black-currant-bushes.”[115]Billings finds at Kadiak “several species of berries, with currants and raspberries in abundance, the latter white, but extremely large, being bigger than any mulberry he had ever seen.”[116]Langsdorff notes most of these at Oonalaska, with cranberries and whortleberries besides.[117]Belcher reports at Garden Island “strawberries, whortleberries, blaeberries, pigeon-berries, and a small cranberry, in tolerable profusion, without going in search of them.”[118]These I quote precisely, and in the order of time.
Next to berries were plants for food; and these were in constant abundance. Behring, on landing at the Shumagin Islands, observed the natives “to eat roots which they dug out of the ground, and scarce shaked off the earth before they eat them.”[119]Cook reports at Oonalaska “a great variety of plants, several of themsuch as we find in Europe and in other parts of America, particularly in Newfoundland: … all these we found very palatable, dressed either in soups or in salads.”[120]La Pérouse, who landed in latitude 58° 37´, finds a French bill of fare, including celery, chicory, sorrel, and “almost all the pot-herbs of the meadows and mountains of France,” besides “several kinds of grass suitable for forage.” Every day and each meal the ship’s kettle was filled with these supplies, and all ate them in soups, ragouts, and salads, much to the benefit of their health.[121]Portlock mentions at Port Etches, besides “fine water-cresses,” “just above the beach, between the bay and the lake, a piece of wild wheat, about two hundred yards long and five yards wide, growing at least two feet high,” which, “with proper care, might certainly be made an useful article of food”; and at Cook’s Inlet he reports “ginseng and snakeroot.”[122]Meares reports at the latter place “inexhaustible plenty” of ginseng, and at Prince William Sound “snakeroot and ginseng, some of which the natives have always with them as a medicine.” He adds: “The ginseng of this part of America is far preferable to that of the eastern side.”[123]Billings finds at Kadiak “ginseng, wild onions, and the edible roots of Kamtchatka,” and then again at Prince William Sound “plenty of ginseng and some snakeroot.”[124]Vancouver finds at Port Mulgrave “wild vegetables in great abundance.”[125]Langsdorff adds to the list, at Oonalaska, “that sweet plant, the Siberian parsnip.”[126]These, too, I quote precisely, and in the order of time.
Since the establishment of Europeans on this coast, an attempt has been made to introduce the nutritious grains and vegetables known to the civilized world, but without very brilliant success. Against wheat and rye and against orchard fruits are obstacles of climate, perhaps insuperable. These require summer heat; but here the summer is comparatively cold. The northern limit of wheat is several degrees below the southern limit of these possessions, so that this friendly grain is out of the question. Rye flourishes further north, as do oats also. The supposed northern boundary of these grains embraces Sitka and grazes the Aleutian Islands. But other climatic conditions are wanting, at least for rye. One of these is dry weather, which is required at the time of its bloom. Possibly the clearing of the forest may produce a modification of the weather. At present barley grows better, and there is reason to believe that it may be cultivated successfully very far to the north. It has ripened at Kadiak. Many garden vegetables have become domesticated. Lütke reports potatoes at Sitka, so that all have enough.[127]Langsdorff reports the same of Kadiak and Oonalaska.[128]There are also at Sitka radishes, cabbages, cauliflowers, peas, and carrots,—making a very respectable list. At Norton Sound I hear of radishes, beets, and cabbages. Even as far north as Fort Yukon, on the parallel of 67°, potatoes, peas, turnips, and even barley, have been grown; but the turnips were unfit for the table, being rotten at the heart. A recent resident reports that there are no fruit-trees, and not even a raspberry-bush, and that he lost all his potatoes during one season by a frost in thelatter days of July; but do not forget that these potatoes were the wall-flowers of the Arctic Circle.
Thus it appears that the vegetable productions of the country are represented practically by trees. The forests, overshadowing the coast from Sitka to Cook’s Inlet, are all that can be shown under this head out of which a revenue can be derived, unless we add ginseng, so much prized by the Chinese, and perhaps also snakeroot. Other things may contribute to the scanty support of a household; but timber will, in all probability, be an article of commerce. It has been so already. Ships from the Sandwich Islands have come for it, and there is reason to believe that this trade may be extended indefinitely, so that Russian America will be on the Pacific like Maine on the Atlantic, and the lumbermen of Sitka vie with their hardy brethren of the East.
These forests, as described, seem to afford all that can be desired. The trees are abundant, and they are perfect in size, not unlike
“the tallest pineHewn on Norwegian hills to be the mastOf some great ammiral.”
“the tallest pineHewn on Norwegian hills to be the mastOf some great ammiral.”
“the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great ammiral.”
But a doubt has been raised as to their commercial value. Here we have the inconsistent testimony of Lütke. According to him, the pines and firs, which he calls “magnificent,” constitute an untried source of commercial wealth. Not only California, but other countries, poor in trees, like Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, and even Chili, will need them. And yet he does not conceal an unfavorable judgment of the timber, which, as seen in the houses of Sitka, suffering from constant moisture, did not seem durable.[129]SirEdward Belcher differs from the Russian admiral, for he praises especially “the timber of the higher latitudes, either for spars or plank.”[130]Perhaps its durability may depend upon the climate where it is used; so that, though failing amidst the damps of Sitka, it may be lasting enough, when transported to another climate. In the rarity of trees on the islands and main-land of the Pacific, the natural supply is in Russian America. One of the early navigators even imagined that China must look this way, and he expected that “the woods would yield a handsome revenue, when the Russian commerce with China should be established.”[131]American commerce with China is established. Perhaps timber may become one of its staples.
A profitable commerce in timber has already begun at Puget Sound. By official returns of 1866 it appears that it was exported to a long list of foreign countries and places, in which I find Victoria, Honolulu, Callao, Tahiti, Canton, Valparaiso, Adelaide, Hong Kong, Sydney, Montevideo, London, Melbourne, Shanghae, Peru, Coquimbo, Calcutta, Hilo, Cape Town, Cork, Guaymas, and Siam; and in this commerce were employed no less than eighteen ships, thirty barks, four brigs, twenty-eight schooners, and ten steamers. The value of the lumber and spars exported abroad was over half a million dollars, while more than four times that amount was shipped coastwise. But the coasts of Russian America are darker with trees than those further south. Pines, in which they abound, do not flourish as low down as Puget Sound. Northward, they are numerous and easily accessible.
In our day the Flora of the coast has been exploredwith care. Kittlitz, who saw it as a naturalist, portrays it with the enthusiasm of an early navigator; but he speaks with knowledge. He, too, dwells on the “surprising power and luxuriance” of the pine forests, describing them with critical skill. The trees which he identifies are the Pinus Canadensis, distinguished for its delicate foliage; the Pinus Mertensiana, a new species, rival of the other in height; and the Pinus Palustris, growing on swampy declivities, and not attaining height. In the clearings or on the outskirts of thickets are shrubs, being chiefly a species of Rubus, with flowers of carmine and aromatic fruit. About and over all are mosses and lichens, invigorated by the constant moisture, while colossal trees, undermined or uprooted, crowd the surface, reminding the scientific observer of the accumulations of the coal measures. Two different prints in the London reproduction of the work of Kittlitz present pictures of these vegetable productions grouped for beauty and instruction. I refer to these, and also to the Essay of Hinds on “The Regions of Vegetation,” the latter to be found at the end of the volumes containing Belcher’s Voyage.
In turning from the vegetable products of this region, it will not be out of place, if I refer for one moment to its domestic animals, for these are necessarily associated with such products. Some time ago it was stated that cattle had not flourished at Sitka, owing to the want of proper pasturage, and the difficulty of making hay in a climate of such moisture. Hogs are more easily sustained, but, feeding on fish, instead of vegetable products, their flesh acquires a fishy taste, which does not recommend it. Nor has there been great success with poultry, for this becomes the preyof the crow, whose voracity here is absolutely fabulous. A Koloschian tribe traces its origin to this bird, which in this neighborhood might be a fit progenitor. Not content with swooping upon hens and chickens, it descends upon swine to nibble at their tails, and so successfully “that the hogs here are without tails,” and then it scours the streets so well that it is called the Scavenger of Sitka. But there are other places more favored. The grass at Kadiak is well suited to cattle, and it is supposed that sheep would thrive there. The grass at Oonalaska is famous, and Cook thought the climate good for cattle, of which we have at least one illustration. Langsdorff reports that a cow grazed here luxuriously for several years, and then was lost in the mountains. That grazing animal is a good witness. Perhaps also it is typical of the peaceful inhabitants.
5.Mineral Products.—In considering the Mineral Products, I ask attention first to the indications afforded by the early navigators. They were not geologists. They saw only what was exposed. And yet, during the long interval that elapsed, not very much has been added to their conclusions. The existence of iron is hardly less uncertain now than then. The existence of copper is hardly more certain now than then. Gold, which is so often a dangerousignis-fatuus, did not appear to deceive them. But coal, which is much more desirable than gold, was reported by several, and once at least with reasonable certainty.
The boat that landed from Behring, when he discovered the coast, found among other things “a whetstone on which it appeared that copper knives hadbeen sharpened.” This was the first sign of the mineral wealth which already excites such interest. At another point where Behring landed, “one of the Americans had a knife hanging by his side, of which his people took particular notice on account of its unusual make.”[132]It has been supposed that this was of iron. Next came Cook, who, when in Prince William Sound, saw “copper and iron.” In his judgment, the iron came, “through the intervention of the more inland tribes, from Hudson’s Bay, or the settlements on the Canadian lakes,” and his editor refers in a note to the knife seen by Behring as from the same quarter; but Cook thought that the copper was obtained near at home, as the natives, when engaged in barter, gave the idea, “that, having so much of this metal of their own, they wanted no more.”[133]Naturally enough, for they were not far from the Copper River. Maurelle, in 1779, landed in sight of Mount St. Elias, and he reports Indians with arrow-heads of copper, which “made the Spaniards suspect mines of this metal there.”[134]La Pérouse, who was also in this neighborhood, after mentioning that the naturalists of the expedition allowed no stone or pebble to escape observation, reports ochre, copper pyrites, garnets, schorl, granite, schist, horn-stone, very pure quartz, mica, plumbago, coal, and then adds that some of these substances announce that the mountains conceal mines of iron and copper. He reports further that the natives had daggers of iron, and sometimes of red copper; that the latter metal was common enough, serving for ornaments and for the pointsof arrows; and he then states the very question of Cook with regard to the acquisition of these metals. He insists also that “the natives know how to forge iron and work copper.”[135]Spears and arrows “pointed with bone or iron,” and also “an iron dagger” for each man, appear in Vancouver’s account of the natives on the parallel of 55°, just within the southern limit of Russian America.[136]Lisiansky saw at Sitka “a thin plate made of virgin copper” found on Copper River, three feet in length, and at one end twenty-two inches in breadth, with various figures painted on one side, which had come from the possession of the natives.[137]Meares reports “pure malleable lumps of copper ore in the possession of the natives,”—one piece weighing as much as a pound, said to have been obtained in barter with other natives further north,—also necklaces and bracelets “of the purest ore.”[138]Portlock, while in Cook’s Inlet, in latitude 59° 27´, at a place called Graham’s Harbor, makes another discovery. Walking round the bay, he saw “two veins of kennel coal situated near some hills just above the beach, and with very little trouble several pieces were got out of the bank nearly as large as a man’s head.” If the good captain did not report more than he saw, this would be most important; for, from the time when the amusing biographer of Lord Keeper North described that clean flaky coal which he calls “candle,” because often used for its light, but which is generally called “cannel,” no coal has been more of a household favorite. He relates, further, that, returning on board in the evening, he “tried some of the coal, and found it toburn clear and well.”[139]Add to these different accounts the general testimony of Meares, who, when dwelling on the resources of the country, boldly includes “mines which are known to lie between the latitudes of 40° and 60° north, and which may hereafter prove a most valuable source of commerce between America and China.”[140]
It is especially when seeking to estimate the mineral products that we feel the want of careful explorations. We know more of the roving aborigines than of these stationary tenants of the soil. We know more of the trees. A tree is conspicuous; a mineral is hidden in the earth, to be found by chance or science. Thus far it seems as if chance only had ruled. The Russian Government handed over the country to a trading company, whose exclusive interest was furs. The company followed its business, when it looked to wild beasts with rich skins rather than to the soil. Its mines were above ground, and not below. There were also essential difficulties in the way of exploration. The interior was practically inaccessible. The thick forest, saturated with rain and overgrown with wet mosses, presented obstacles which nothing but enlightened enterprise could overcome. Even at a short distance from the port of Sitka all effort failed, and the inner recesses of the island, only thirty miles broad, were never penetrated.
The late Professor Henry D. Rogers, in his admirable paper on the Physical Features of America, being part of his contribution to Keith Johnston’s Atlas, full of knowledge and of fine generalization, says of this northwest belt, that it is “little known in its topographyto any but the roving Indians and the thinly scattered fur-trappers.” But there are certain general features which he proceeds to designate. According to him, it belongs to what is known as the tertiary period of geology, intervening between the cretaceous period and that now in progress, but including also granite, gneiss, and ancient metamorphic rocks. It is not known if the true coal measures prevail in any part, although there is reason to believe that they exist on the coast of the Arctic Ocean between Cape Lisburne and Point Barrow.
Beginning at the south, we have Sitka and its associate islands, composed chiefly of volcanic rocks, with limestone near. Little is known even of the coast between Sitka and Mount St. Elias, which, itself a volcano, is the beginning of a volcanic region occupying the peninsula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and having no less than thirty volcanoes, some extinct, but others still active. Most of the rocks here are volcanic, and the only fossiliferous beds are of the tertiary period. North of Alaska, and near the mouth of the Kwichpak, the coast seems volcanic or metamorphic, and probably tertiary, with a vein of lignite near the head of Norton Sound. At the head of Kotzebue Sound the cliffs abound in the bones of elephants and mammals now extinct, together with those of the musk-ox and other animals still living in the same latitude. From Kotzebue Sound northward, the coast has a volcanic character. Then at Cape Thompson it is called subcarboniferous, followed by rocks of the carboniferous age, being limestones, shales, and sandstones, which extend from Cape Lisburne far round to Point Barrow. At Cape Beaufort, very near the seventieth parallel of latitude,and north of the Arctic Circle, on a high ridge a quarter of a mile from the beach is a seam of coal which appears to be of the true coal measures.
From this general outline, which leaves much in uncertainty, I come to what is more important.
It is not entirely certain that iron has been found, although frequently reported. Evidence points to the south, and also to the north. Near Sitka it was reported by the Russian engineer Doroschin, although it does not appear that anything has been done to verify his report. A visitor there, as late as last year, saw excellent iron, said to be from a bed in the neighborhood, reported inexhaustible, and with abundant wood for its reduction. Then again on Kotzebue Sound specimens have been collected. At 66° 13´ Kotzebue found a false result in his calculations, which he attributes to the disturbing influence of “iron.”[141]A resident on the Yukon thinks that there is iron in that neighborhood.
Silver, also, has been reported at Sitka by the same Russian engineer who reported iron, and, like the iron, in “sufficient quantity to pay for the working.”
Lead was reported by the Russian explorer, Lieutenant Zagoyskin, on the lower part of the Kwichpak; but it is not known to what extent it exists.
Copper is found on the banks of the Copper River, called by the Russians the Mjednaja, meaning copper, and of its affluent, the Tchetchitno, in masses sometimes as large as forty pounds. Of this there can be little doubt. It is mentioned by Golowin, in the “Archiv” of Erman, as late as 1863. Undoubtedly from this neighborhood was obtained the copper which arrested the attention of the early navigators. Traces of copper arefound in other places on the coast; also in the mountains near the Yukon, where the Indians use it for arrow-heads.
Coal seems to exist all along the coast,—according to Golowin, “everywhere, in greater or less quantity.” Traces are reported on the islands of the Sitkan archipelago; and this is extremely probable, for it has been worked successfully on Vancouver’s Island below. It is also found on the Kenaian peninsula, Alaska, the island of Unga, belonging to the Shumagin group, Oonalaska, and far to the north at Cape Beaufort. At this last place it is “slaty, burning with a pure flame and rapid consumption,” and it is supposed that there are extensive beds in the neighborhood better in quality. For an account of this coal I refer to the scientific illustrations of Beechey’s Voyage. The natives also report coal in the interior on the Kwichpak. The coal of Oonalaska, and probably of Alaska, is tertiary, and not adapted for steamers. With regard to that of Unga scientific authorities are divided. That of the Kenaian peninsula is the best and the most extensive. It is found on the eastern side of Cook’s Inlet, half way between Cape Anchor and the Russian settlement of St. Nicholas, in veins three quarters of a yard or more in thickness, and ranging in quality from mere carboniferous wood to anthracite. According to one authority, these coal veins extend and spread far into the interior. This coal has more than once been sent to California for trial, and was there pronounced a good article. Since then it has been mined by the Company, not only for their own uses, but also for export to California. In making these statements, I rely particularly upon Golowin, in the “Archiv” of Erman, andupon the elaborate work of Grewingk, in the “Transactions of the Mineralogical Society of St. Petersburg” for 1848 and 1849,[142]where is a special map of the Kenaian peninsula.
Gold is less important than coal, but its discovery produces more excitement. The report of gold in any quarter stimulates the emigrant or the adventurer hoping to obtain riches swiftly. Nor is this distant region without such experience. Only a few years ago, the British colony of Victoria was aroused by a rumor of gold in the mountains of the Stikine River, not far in the interior from Sitka. At once there was a race that way, and the solitudes of this river were penetrated by hunters in quest of the glittering ore. Discomfiture ensued. Gold had been found, but not in any sufficient quantities reasonably accessible. Nature for the present had set up obstacles. But failure in one place will be no discouragement in another, especially as there is reason to believe that the mountains here contain a continuation of those auriferous deposits which have become so famous further south. The Sierra Nevada chain of California reaches here.
Traces of gold have been observed at other points. One report places a deposit not far from Sitka. The same writer who reports iron also reports that during the last year he saw a piece of gold as large as a marble, which was shown by an Indian. But the Russian engineer, Doroschin, furnishes testimony more precise. He reports gold in at least three different localities, each of considerable extent. The first is the mountain range on the north of Cook’s Inlet and extending into the peninsula of Alaska, consisting principally of clay slatewith permeating veins of diorite, the latter being known as a gold-bearing rock. He observed this in the summer of 1851. About the same time, certain Indians from the Bay of Yakutat, not far from Mount St. Elias, brought him specimens of diorite found in their neighborhood, making, therefore, a second deposit. In the summer of 1855, the same engineer found gold on the southern side of Cook’s Inlet, in the mountains of the Kenay peninsula. Satisfying himself, first, that the bank occupied by the redoubt of St. Nicholas, at the mouth of the Kaknu River, was gold-bearing, he was induced to follow the development of diorite in the upper valley of the river, and, as he ascended, found a gold-bearing alluvion, gradually increasing, with scales of gold becoming coarser and coarser, instead of scarcely visible, as at first.
It does not appear that the discoveries on Cook’s Inlet were pursued; but it is reported that the Hudson’s Bay Company, holding the country about the Bay of Yakutat under a lease from the Russian Company, have found the diorite in that neighborhood valuable. This incident has given rise to a recent controversy. Russian journals attacked the engineer for remissness in not exploring the Yakutat country. He has defended himself by setting out what he actually did in the way of discovery, and the essential difficulty at the time in doing more: all which will be found in a number, just received, of the work to which I have so often referred, the “Archiv” of Erman, for 1867.[143]
Thus much for the mineral resources of this new-found country, as recognized at a few points on the extensive coast, leaving the vast unknown interior without a word.
6.Furs.—I pass now to Furs, which at times have vied with minerals in value, although the supply is more limited and less permanent. Trappers are “miners” of the forest, seeking furs as others seek gold. The parallel continues also in the greed and oppression unhappily incident to the pursuit. A Russian officer, who was one of the early visitors on this coast, remarks that to his mind the only prospect of relief for the suffering natives “consists in the total extirpation of the animals of the chase,” which he thought, from the daily havoc, must take place in a very few years.[144]This was at the close of the last century. The trade, though essentially diminished, still continues an important branch of commerce.
Early in this commerce, desirable furs were obtained in barter for a trifle; and when something of value was exchanged, it was much out of proportion to the furs. This has been the case generally in dealing with the natives, until their eyes have been slowly opened. In Kamtchatka, at the beginning of the last century, half a dozen sables were obtained in exchange for a knife, and a dozen for a hatchet; and the Kamtchadales wondered that their Cossack conquerors were willing to pay so largely for what seemed worth so little. Similar incidents on the Northwest Coast are reported by the early navigators. Cook mentions that in exchange for “beads” the Indians at Prince William Sound “readily gave whatever they had, even their fine sea-otter skins,” which they prized no more than other skins, until it appeared how much they were prized by their visitors.[145]Where there was no competition,prices rose slowly, and many years after Cook, the Russians at Oonalaska, in return for “trinkets and tobacco,” received twelve sea-otter skins, and fox skins of different kinds to the number of near six hundred.[146]These instances show in a general way the spirit of this trade even to our own day. On the coast, and especially in the neighborhood of the factories, the difference in the value of furs is recognized, and a proportionate price obtained, which Sir Edward Belcher found in 1837 to be for “a moderately good sea-otter skin from six to seven blankets, increasing to thirteen for the best,” together with “sundry knick-knacks.”[147]But in the interior it is otherwise. A recent resident in the region of the Yukon assures me that he has seen skins worth several hundred dollars bartered for goods worth only fifty cents.
Beside whalers and casual ships, with which the Esquimaux are in the habit of dealing, the commerce in furs, on both sides of the continent, north of the United States, has for a long time been in the hands of two corporations,—being the Hudson’s Bay Company, with directors in London, and the Russian American Company, with directors in St. Petersburg. The former is much the older of the two, and has been the most flourishing. Its original members were none other than Prince Rupert, the Duke of Albemarle, Earl Craven, Lord Ashley, and other eminent associates, who received a charter from Charles the Second, in 1670, to prosecute a search after a new passage to the South Sea, and to establish a trade in furs, minerals, and other considerable commodities in all those seas, and in the British possessions north and west of Canada, withpowers of government, the whole constituting a colossal monopoly, which stretched from Labrador and Baffin’s Bay to an undefined West. At present this great corporation is known only as a fur company, to which all its powers are tributary. For some time its profits were so considerable that it was deemed advisable to hide them by nominal additions to the stock. With the extinction of the St. Petersburg corporation under the present treaty, the London corporation will remain the only existing fur company on the continent, but necessarily restricted in its operation to British territory. It remains to be seen into whose hands the commerce on the Pacific side will fall, now that this whole region will be open to the unchecked enterprise of our citizens.
This remarkable commerce began before the organization of the Russian Company. Its profits may be inferred from a voyage in 1772, described by Coxe, between Kamtchatka and the Aleutians. The tenth part of the skins being handed to the custom-house, the remainder were distributed in fifty-five shares, consisting each of twenty sea-otters, sixteen black and brown foxes, ten red foxes, and three sea-otter tails; and these shares were sold on the spot at from eight hundred to one thousand rubles each, so that the whole lading brought about fifty thousand rubles.[148]The cost of these may be inferred from the articles given in exchange. A Russian outfit, of which I find a contemporary record, was, among other things, “about five hundred weight of tobacco, one hundred weight of glass beads, perhaps a dozen spare hatchets and a few superfluous knives of very bad quality, an immense number of traps for foxes,a few hams, a little rancid butter.”[149]With such imports against such exports, the profits must have been considerable.
From Langsdorff we have a general inventory of furs at the beginning of the century in the principal magazine of the Russian Company on the island of Kadiak, drawn from the islands, the peninsula of Alaska, Cook’s Inlet, Prince William Sound, and the continent generally. Here were “a great variety of the rarest kinds of fox skins,” black, blackish, reddish, silver gray, and stone fox,—the last probably a species of the Arctic; “brown and red bears, the skins of which are of great value,” and also “the valuable black bear”; the zisel marmot, and the common marmot; the glutton; the lynx, chiefly of whitish gray; the reindeer; the beaver; the hairy hedgehog; “the wool of a wild American sheep, whitish, fine, and very long,” but he could never obtain sight of the animal that produced this wool; also sea-otters, once “the principal source of wealth to the Company, now nearly extirpated, a few hundreds only being annually collected.”[150]Many of the same furs were reported by Cook on this coast in his day. They all continue to be found,—except that I hear nothing of wild sheep, save at a Sitkan dinner.
There has been much exaggeration with regard to the profits of the Russian corporation. An English writer of authority calls the produce “immense,” and adds that “formerly it was much greater.” I refer to the paper of Mr. Petermann, read before the Royal Geographical Society of London, in 1852.[151]The number of skins at times is prodigious, although this fails to revealprecisely the profits. For instance, Pribyloff collected within two years, on the islands northwest of Alaska which bear his name, the skins of 2,000 sea-otters, 40,000 sea-bears or ursine seals, 6,000 dark ice-foxes, together with 1,000 poods of walrus ivory.[152]The pood is a Russian weight of thirty-six pounds. Lütke mentions that in 1803 no less than 800,000 skins of the ursine seal were accumulated in the factory at Oonalaska, of which 700,000 were thrown into the sea, partly because they were badly prepared, and partly to keep up the price,[153]—thus imitating the Dutch, who for the same reason burned spices. Another estimate masses the collection for a series of years. From 1787 to 1817, for only part of which time the Company existed, the Oonalaska district yielded upwards of 2,500,000 seal-skins; and from 1817 to 1838, during all which time the Company was in power, the same district yielded 879,000 seal-skins. Assuming, what is improbable, that these skins were sold at twenty-five rubles each, some calculating genius has ciphered out the sum-total of proceeds at more than 85,000,000 rubles,—or, calling the ruble seventy-five cents, a sum-total of more than $63,000,000. Clearly, the latter years can show no approximation to any such doubtful result.