ALASKA AND ITS RESOURCES.* Tuts book is divided into two
parts, and we advise the reader in search of facts to skip the first part and proceed at once to the second, where he will find carefully and elaborately tabulated all the information he can possibly desire concerning the dreary land of which it treats. Mr. Dall's narrative of his personal adventures is tedious in the extreme, and the bulky volume might be reduced to half its size with decided advantage to the reader. It has all the faults common to books of travel compiled from diaries ; little incidents which possibly were of some importance in the day in which they transpired, but which have long since become utterly valueless, are recorded with all the gravity of historical everts, and we are informed in almost every other page concerning the possibilities of making good tea or the number of hours to be devoted to rsleep. We have intense sympathy, however, with Mr. Dall's scientific researches in a comparatively unknown country, and will endeavour to show presently how much he has contributed to our meagre stock of knowledge ; but the graver results of his labours are all collected in the second part of his book, whilst the notices in his diary are often concerning details so trivial in them- selves that we are laughably reminded of the old rhyme :—
" Who saw him die ? I, said the fly, With my little eye I saw him die.
Here is the fly
With his little eye."
Mr. Dall had, upon the death of Mr. Robert Kennicott, succeeded to the direction of the scientific corps of the late "Western Union Telegraph Expedition." What that expedition was, and how it came to a sudden close through the success of the Atlantic Cable, we have lately seen, through the pages of Mr. Kennan's delightful book. Mr. Dail does not go over exactly the same ground, but was one of the few who were engaged in completing the explora- tion of the Lower Yukon; and for the benefit of such of our readers as may have but an indistinct idea of the geographical position of the country, we may briefly state that it is the territory lying to the extreme north-west of North America. Hitherto the country has come before our notice under the general head of Russian America, and its principal towns, or rather stations, have been colonized by Russians of whom it is hardly too much to say that they were the very off-scouring of the old country. Mr. Dall remarks that it was his good fortune, among the Creoles, naval officers, and general officers of the Russian-American Company, to meet many gentlemen of refinement, intelligence, and a high sense of honour and justice ; but his experience everywhere went to prove the fact so often asserted, that the workmen were, almost without exception, convicts, mostly from Siberia, and convicted of such crimes as theft, incorrigible drunkenness, burglary, and even manslaughter. The treatment of the Aleuts by the Russians in the early days of the Company has made their name a thing of dread to this hour ; they were the slaves of the Company, and were regarded rather as beasts than men. It is true, the Russian Church maintained a hierarchy even in this dreary region; but the Aleuts, who at the command of Government became zealous Chris-
tians, would, says Mr. Dall, at the same command have become Mahometans with equal readiness. He bears most unfavourable testi-
mony to the missionary work of the Greek Church in these regions, asserting positively that Father Innocentius Veniaminoff (since Bishop of Kamtschatka) has, alone of the Greek missionaries to Alaska, left behind him an undying record of devotion, self-sacri- fice, and love, and that to him the Aleuts owe whatever of good may be found ingrained in their character. But, like similar tribes, they are dying out ; their numbers, when first brought in contact with the Russians, were estimated at ten thousand, now there are not more than about fifteen hundred ; it remains to be seen how they and the other tribes will fare under the new regime, for we must bear in mind the fact of the purchase of the entire territory by the United States, every detail of which transfer is carefully given by Mr. Dall. It was on the 18th of October, 1867, that the territory was formally surrendered by the Russian colonial authorities to General Lovell Rousseau, U.S.A., who had been appointed United States Commissioner to receive the territory.
Mr. Dall was at St. Michael's when the news of the success of the Atlantic Cable reached him and the other members of the exploring and constructing party, who had gathered there to wait for tidings. The news was welcome enough to the hard-worked constructors, but not to the explorers of the party. And Mr. Dall finally decided to let the rest of the party return without him,
4' Alaska and us Benton:ea By William H. Dall. London: Sampson Low and Marston. 1870. while he continued the work of exploration which he had success- fully begun. And the regrets, which he could not but feel as the Clara Bell stood out to sea, and he remembered his only means of ever reaching civilization again, depended on some passing trader, or the annual store-ship of the Russians, were stifled, as many such regrets have been before, by the imperative necessity of providing something for dinner. His first impulse naturally was to take his gun, but he was informed by Stepanoff, the chief factor of the station, that he could dine without first undertaking a shooting expedition, as there were various species of edible fungi procurable in the immediate neighbourhood. His plan of operations during his stay in the country was, first, "to examine the rocks along the shores of Norton Sound and across the portage as thoroughly as possible. Next, to take his trading goods, and such provisions as he could obtain, to Nulato ; spend the winter in making explorations in that vicinity, and, if possible, make a winter visit to Kotzebue Sound ; to take a boat across the
and descend the Yukon in the spring, examining the rocks carefully, and making as thorough collections as possible of specimens of natural history ; to spend some time at the Yukon mouth ; and finally return by sea to the Redoubt ; and there await some opportunity of getting a passage to Sitka or San Francisco with the collection." The next hundred and fifty pages. arefilled with the narrative of a life which, but for the accumu- lated results given elsewhere, would seem strangely little worth. the writing ; but as we have said before, it is with those results we advise the reader to begin, and he will, if diligent, painstaking, and patient, rise from the perusal with a clear knowledge of the past. history, present position, and future prospects of Alaska. We get. valuable notes on the characteristics of the Innuit and Indian tribes, tribes too often confounded in the mind of the casual observer. To distinguish them more fully, Mr. Dail proposed to. the American "Association for the Advancement of Science' that they should adopt the term Orcirian as the appellation of all the tribes dwelling on the coast, including the Innuit, Aleutian, and Asiatic Eskimo, and thus distinguish them from, the other great group of natives who are included under the name of Indians. Neither, however, seem likely long to survive any very close contact with civilization ; the wild grass gives place before the plough, yet wild grass has its use ; it is certain, nevertheless, that notwithstanding any halo of romance which. may have been thrown around their lives (those lives which at best are a fight with famine and with cold for bare existence)„ when the last Indian sleeps his last long sleep the world will not be the loser.
We have a valuable chapter on the history of exploration and trade in Alaska since 1542, and Mr. Dail clearly considers. there is still a wide untrodden field for enterprise. He has. madecareful collections of the fauna of the country, and of its vegetable productions, and has devoted considerable time to the • of its geological formation ; there is, in fact, much to arrest. the attention of both naturalist and antiquarian, but we think the reader will possibly be more interested in the practical and prosaic question of the resources of the country as they affect the • and the trader. The country under a monopoly afforded a hundred thousand silver roubles a year taxes to the Russian crown, and Mr. Dail says, "Speaking from no uncertainty, but. from positive knowledge, I believe that a proper and not onerous. system of taxation would afford the United States two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold per annum. The greater part. of the sources of possible wealth in the country are still altogether undeveloped, for instance, the blubber of the seal so much prized for its fur yields oil worth two dollars a gallon." Yet for- many years hundreds of barrels have fertilized the hill-sides for- want of some one to preserve it, so that it would seem on an average that at least sixty thousand dollars' worth of oil is. annually wasted. Again, Mr. Dall calls attention to the fact- that small farms in the Orkneys which formerly rented for 140 a year have risen to £300, on account of the utilization of the kelp. which grows on their shore, and from which carbonate of soda and iodine are manufactured. "The alkali is consumed. in the manufacture of glass and in all hard soaps. It is from. incinerated kelp that iodine is obtained in large quantities. The
• of kelp from which all the alkali has been crystallized, by a chemical process, affords iodine through distillation." Now, there. are immense fields of kelp which fringe the greater portion of the north-west coast ; so that, as Mr. Dall concludes, this manufacture might be carried on in almost any part of Alaska to any desired. extent. At the mouth of the Yukon not less than two million.
salmon are dried every summer, and the number could easily be trebled ; while, says our author, the more southern salmon cannot.
be even compared with it for flavour. And we meet again with oar old friend the dlikon, whose value has never yet been half estimated. But, turning from the fisheries, whose boundless capabilities no one doubts, we have before us here a careful con- sideration of the agricultural prospects of the countoy, and these at first sight are undoubtedly small. Yet during the ninny months of May and June the growth of plants is rapid, and large tracts of land, writes Mr. Dail, hitherto considered valueless, might furnish, if not abundant, yet very acceptable crops. The coasts and lowlands are covered with luxuriant grass, which might be extensively used for pasturage, with due care taken to protect the cattle in the 'winter; and in one of the most essential requisites for making a country habitable, namely, timber, the land abounds. Among the most valuable of the trees is the white spruce. Mr. Dall found houses twenty years old built of this wood, in which most of the logs were absolutely sound, which is saying a good deal, when its exposure to the elements in a country so inclement as Alaska is considered. An interesting comparison is drawn out by Mr. Dalt between the Aleutian Isles and the Highlands of Scotland which have for centuries been under cultivation. He sees little reason to doubt that with similar industry a similar result might be produced, since Sitka has already most of the common vegetables, cattle live, and the milk and cream are good, and there arc forests of the yellow cedar or camphor woods. Mr. Dall closes his account of this great bleak territory with a sanguine prophecy of its future: "I have seen with surprise and regret that men whose forefathers -wielded the axe in the forests of Maine, or gathered scanty crops on the granite hillsides of Massachusetts, have seen fit to throw contempt and derision on the acquisition of a great territory naturally far richer than that in which they themselves originated, principally on the ground that it is a 'cold' country. This complaint is but half true, to begin with, since on half of the coast of the new territory the thermometer has never been known to fall below zero. Icebergs are unknown in Alaska from Dixon's Entrance to Bering Strait, and no polar bear ever came within a thousand miles of Sitka. On the other hand, has the race of hardy pioneers died out among us? Do we, as a nation, sigh only for indolent siestas in the canebrakes of Cuba ? In a country where all that we honour and respect has grown from the efforts of those whose energy, fostered by conflict with the elements, has made a garden of the rock, turned the forest into fruitful fields, and drawn the precious minerals from the flinty bosom of the earth, there can be but one answer to such a question. We have bought for a nominal price the key to the North Pacific. It can no longer be said that three ironclads can block- ade our entire western coast. Two hundred and fifty years hence there may be a new New England where there is now a trackless forest. The time may come when we shall call on our Pacific fishermen to man our fleets, on the lumbermen of Alaska and our hardy northern trappers to .don the blue, and strike another blow for unity and freedom. The oak must weather the storms of many winters before it gains maturity. Alaska is not a California, where cities arise in a night, and may pass away in a day. Meanwhile, we must be patient."
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