THE WEST SHORE.
139
ALASKA. i wnr,l,Hl i,y (OR 8ledgoB to Irkutsk, a distance of !l,4!0
YEAR by year Alaska becomes better known to the . miles. From there some wore sent south 1,1100 miles to
people at large. When Mr. Seward paid 87,200,000 , Pekin, Chinn, ami the others were forwarded across 11,7(10
for what was popularly considered a gigantic iceberg, few miles of dreary waste to St. Petersburg. The iwret
besides himself realized the great valua of the purchase. navigators and least scientific explorers of the Pacific
The Russians occupied its coast for years without explor- were the Russians and Spaniards. One English voyage
ing its interior enough to give us even an approximately j wns worth a dozen such as they f reipiently made. Una
correct map, and during her seventeen years of owner- sians occupied tlio coast and islands of Alaska thirty
ship the United States has done but little better. Even years, entertaining the belief that from Mount St Eliaa
last year an officer who found time dragging heavily j westward and northwestward to tho coast of Asia whs a
upon his hands, while waiting for a vessel to take him j vast sea of islands; while tho Spaniards, after several
away from that region, managed by a short journey into voyages from Mexico to Alaska, were unable to draw a
the interior to stumble upon a river, the existence of chart of the coast lino with tho least approach to aecu
which was previously unknown, and which, if his opinion 1 racy. It was loft for the celebrated Captain Cook, who
is well founded, is not only greater than the mighty was dispatched by England in search of the Straits of
Yukon, but one of the largest rivers on the globe. At Auian, to demonstrate to the Russians in 177K that Alaska
the same time Lieutenant Schwatka was exploring the 'was a vast northwestern projection of tho continent,
latter stream and'verifying, for the first time, the reports , fringed with thousands of islands great and small, and to
of its great magnitude
,f -if-
An expedition to explore
the river discovered by
Lieutenant Stoney is be
ing fitted out, and with
the enterprise now being
displayed by the Govern
ment, we may hope in a
few years to know as much
nWnit Alaska as we do
about Central Africa.
For years Spain,' by
her possession of Mexico
and Central America, do
minated the Pacific and
enriched herself .with
the commerce of the
Indies. In vain Eng
land and other Powers
sought for some other
route into the Pacific
than the long and dangerous
fine firnnnn Cane Horn. There existed
at that time a general belief among geographers that
ALASKA'S THOt'HANt) IHI.ANim.
at that time a general beliei among geogmpmun umt .. .. tI u . , n. .l,r,u.r f our coast
from Hudson's Bay or the North Sea, as the Arctic enl.ght.ui tho Spaniards upo. the character r
from Hudson s uay or we .. . , . ttAoyn,, the course pursued by their
Ocean was then called, anu wnioii w wubiuo v , - -
accessible from the Atlantic, there-g ,1 1, lb. bands
into the Pacific whrir -American Ming C,,pany by royal
Diligent search on the Atlantic su e, and occasion. y , expanded gradually until there
ages in the Pacific, failed to reveal such a geography i'lislid on the islands and main
feature. At last, in 1728, a Ju-ma exFditio inid , rtor8 nk New Archangel, or Hill as
Behring sailed through the straits '' W(Hl WBrwm i(l TO nd
name, wunoui Deingawiuo m -
rl---i. At i, 'A
I -W , T CCS
land in the vicinity of Moun bb inas. 1 ' fur trade ' 'lus ve privilege of catching fur muds in the new torrL
lowed by the establishment of stations for the fur trade lus.ve r g f
on the islands and at various pJnU on th e nuun ami , tory Ul8 MInllBr Heals t m kilhnl
These furs were chiefly procured by purchase f on tto ,ht u wftH fof tw((ty yIirK,
natives, and were all sent by vessel w - - - t fc Tho y,((irly m,tai IH
pavlovski, in Kamtchatkn, from which they were for- and has six yt.w y