all the coal they (Russian-American Company) required for use in their steamers. They made the mistake, however, of following the seam under the bay, and, cutting a stream of water, the mine was flooded beyond redemption. Subsequently, about the year 1851, a company was formed in San Francisco, to which the RussianAmerican Company was a party, for the purpose of mining coal for the San Francisco market, and a new mine near the old one was opened under the local management of a German engineer named Haltern, and from that time till the transfer considerable coal was mined, though very little of it found its way to San Francisco. The American partners of the firm or corporation, which was called the American-Russian Company, concluded that San Francisco needed more ice than coal and the shipment of ice from Wood Island was made its principal business. With the transfer of the country to the United States, all efforts at coal mining ceased and nothing of importance has ever since been done looking to the practical development of the extensive coal measures on Cook Inlet and elsewhere in Alaska.

At Graham Harbor is the old Russian settlement of Alexandrofsky, where the Alaska Commercial Company maintains a fur trading station, and a few Creoles and some natives reside, the former engaged principally in gardening. There

is another Creole settlement named Seldovia, a few miles north of Graham Harbor, and a number of others on the west shore, all of which have taken on new life since the influx of the large number of gold seekers who for the past two or three years have made the Cook Inlet region the Mecca of their pilgrimage.

The natives who inhabit the Cook Inlet country, save only a very small portion on each side of the entrance, are of the Athabaskan stock, of which there are a large number of tribes, clans or families in Alaska. These people are gener ally referred to as "natives of the interior," Cook Inlet being the only place where they have succeeded in obtaining a permanent foothold on the coast. They resemble much more closely than do any other Alaskan natives the red Indian of the plains; they are nomadic in their habits and occupy an area of country which embraces more than half the territory. Along the coast from Cape Elizabeth to Copper River on the east, on the islands of the Kadiak Archipelago and along the whole water front away around to where the eastern boundary line intersects with the Arctic Ocean, and on a large part of the Aliaska Peninsula, are found the Eskimos only, the Athabaskans being hemmed into the interior at all points save the one named. They are taller and darker than their Eskimo neighbors, but these on the

coast have to a great extent adopted the dress and customs of the Creoles, and very little difference therefore between them and the coast people further south is distinguishable. History

credits them, however, with having been an exceedingly brave people, who were conquered by the Russians only after a great deal of hard fighting, in which superiority of arms and not superior bravery of the invaders compelled their submission. The first permanent white settlements on Cook Inlet were established as early as 1789. With these settlements came the missionaries of the Greco-Russian Church, and the Kenaitze were converted to Christianity as much from a fear of the wrath immediately threatened as from that which was pictured to come in the great hereafter. However, they are now as good Christians as might reasonably be expected from their limited understanding, and in honesty will compare favorably with most white communities whose religious professions are much more orthodox.

CHAPTER VIII.

Cook Inlet to Unalaska-Shelikoff Strait-KarlukNative People and their Habitations-Great Salmon Canning Industry-Shumagin Islands—Unga and its Gold Mine-Coal-Beekofsky and Pavloff and Shishaldin Volcanoes-The Aleutian Islands-UnalaskaCharacter and Habits of Native Aleutians-Natural Resources-Bogoslov-Volcanic Phenomena.

Through Shelikoff Strait the body of water which separates Kadiak and Afognak Islands from that part of the mainland known as the Aliaska Peninsula, the western shore of which is washed by the waters of Bering Sea, lies the route to Karluk, the seat of the largest salmon canning industry in Alaska. The scenery

throughout the length of the strait as viewed from the ship is indescribably grand and awe-inspiring. The pen which failed to adequately describe the sublimity and grandeur of the Mount St. Elias Alps would fail still more ingloriously if it attempted a word picture of scenery such as encloses this wide strait; it will make no attempt to portray that which is beyond the skill of the artist; it must be seen to be properly appreciated.

Karluk is situated at the mouth of a river of

the same name, on the southwestern side of Kadiak Island. There is no harbor at this point, and in case of a blow a vessel must weigh anchor and stand away to escape the danger of being dashed to pieces on the rocky and precipitous shore. Here are located half a dozen or more large canneries, the aggregate annual product of which is said to exceed half a million cases, representing 12,000 tons of the merchantable commodity.

The Karluk River, a beautiful stream of clear, blue water, flowing down from a mountain lake of the same name, here pours its pellucid tide into the strait, a neck of low land lying between the salt water and where the river sweeps around the base of the steep bluffs on its way to the sea. On this neck are located the canneries, boarding-houses, etc., while high upon the opposite side of the stream is a native settlement of people who call themselves Aleuts, but who are really Eskimos, or, as they were originally called, Kanaigs. There is another native village two miles up the river. That the fish are abundant in this stream, which is not more than four rods in width, may be inferred from the number and capacity of the canneries, together with the fact that from it some 300 natives derive their principal food supply. It must be remembered that the natives have no other idea of preserving fish