laid on and covered with salt as before, and the operation is repeated until all are salted. After lying for at least five days in the first salt they are shaken out and examined, and resalted as before, excepting that the top layer is now put down first and the original position of all the layers reversed. When sufficiently cured they are bundled by the natives, who, spreading a thin layer of salt between the two skins, lay them flesh side to flesh side, and fold the two into a neat, compact bundle, which they tie securely with strong twine, and throw into the pile for shipping. From the shipping pile they are again counted out, bundle by bundle, by the Treasury agent, in whose presence they are always taken from the salt house to the boat, from which they are again counted by the mate into the steamer that takes them to San Francisco, where they are counted once more by the custom officers, and finally packed into barrels. by the lessees and shipped direct to London via New York. CHAPTER XXXIII. HISTORICAL SKETCH For the following historical sketch of Alaska from the earliest times to the beginning of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century, the author is indebted to Mr. Ivan Petroff's able report made to the Interior Department in 1881, Mr. Petroff having been commissioned by the government for that among other purposes. It was regarded by his official superiors as a report of unusual research, painstaking and accurate. Its reliability and authority remain unquestioned to the present day, and the author deems himself fortunate in the privilege of using it here: A report upon a country so little known to us as Alaska is at the present day would scarcely be considered complete without a brief historical sketch of its first discovery and subsequent development until its final fusion into the union of States and Territories. For this purpose it is unnecessary to go back beyond the second voyage of discovery undertaken by Vitus Bering, who in the course of his first explorations some years previously had discovered the strait named after him, and proved to the world the separation of the continents of Asia and America. The so-called second northern naval expedition, fitted out in the year 1733 by order of the Empress Anna, though unfortunate in nearly all its details and fatal to its commander, served to show the Russian navigators the way to unknown regions of North America and adjoining islands. The information brought back by members of the expedition however vague and unsatisfactory, acquainted the Rus sians with some islands the existence of which had been exceedingly doubtful. The labors of this expedition resulted in the discovery of the North American coast in the vicinity of latitude 58 degrees, and of the several islands of the Aleutian chain, as well as of the greater portion of the Kurile Islands. A few of the latter had been reported as early as the end of the sixteenth century, but for more definite information as to these localities the world was indebted to the Russian traders and hunters or other adventurers, who, upon a mere rumor of the existence of valuable furs, set out in such craft as they could lay their hands upon and made their way from island to island until the whole region was discovered. * * * In the year 1761 a ship of the merchant Bechevin made the coast of the Alaska Peninsula. Up to this time the relations between the natives of the islands and the Russian invaders had been altogether of a friendly character, the former submitting patiently to the demands of the newcomers, but the promyshleniks, encouraged by their easy conquests, proceeded from bad to worse, committing outrages of every kind, reducing the people to a state of servitude verging upon absolute slavery, and continued to act in this manner until the patience of even this timid race was exhausted. The first Russians to feel the effect of a change in the attitude of the natives were the members of an expedition under command of the merchant Drushinnin, who arrived at Unalaska in 1762. Upon a given signal the people of all the villages on the island arose and slaughtered their oppressors, until of a complement of over 150 men only four individuals, who happened to be absent from their vessels, survived; these were subsequently saved through the good offices of a charitable Aleut, who kept them in concealment in the interior of the island until it was possible to communicate with the members of another expedition. * * * Another exploring party was sent to Prince William Sound with orders to proceed as far as Cape St. Elias, located by Bering in his second voyage, now known to be the southern end of the island of Kaiak. As a business venture this last enterprise was not very successful, the inhabitants of Prince William Sound and the Copper River delta showing decided aversion to intercourse with the Russians, and apparently the only result of the enterprise was the erection of crosses and various other signs at different points of the islands and seacoast for the purpose of notifying explorers of other nations that the coast had been taken possession of by the Russians. Both Spanish and English vessels had been in the same vicinity many years previous, and had taken formal possession, leaving the usual marks of notification. All these were carefully removed by the Russians before planting their own. The same geographical farce was enacted again at the time of Vancouver's cruise in the waters of Prince William Sound, when, on several occasions, the English discoverer took formal possession of one side of an island while the Spaniard erected his crosses on the other side, and at the same time the Russians, already permanently established, moved quickly about from place to place in their light, skin-covered boats, removing the marks of possession as fast as planted, and substituting their own. * * * The beginning of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century forms an epoch in the history of the Russian fur trade on the islands of Bering Sea. For several years previous to this period the most prominent merchant in Siberia engaged in this trade was Grigor Ivanovitch Shelikhof, a citizen of the town of Rylsk, who had come to Siberia together with Ivan Larionovich Golikof, a |