eer
in the annals of the New World discovery.[4]

[1] I adopt the views of Dr. Stejneger, of the National Museum,
Washington, on this point, as he has personally gone over every foot of
the ground.

[2] Dr. George Davidson, President of the Geographical Society of the
Pacific, has written an irrefutable pamphlet on why Kyak Island and Sitka
Sound must be accepted as the landfalls of Bering and Chirikoff.

[3] Thus the terrible Sitkan massacre of a later day was preceded by the
slaughter of the first Russians to reach America. The Russian government
of a later day originated a comical claim to more territory on the ground
that descendants of these lost Russians had formed settlements farther
down the coast, alleging in proof that subsequent explorers had found
red-headed and light-complexioned people as far south as the Chinook
tribes. To such means will statecraft stoop.

[4] Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians between Asia and America_ (Paris,
1781) supplies local data on Siberia in the time of Bering. _Voyages
from Asia to America_, by S. Mueller of the Royal Academy, St. Petersburg,
1764, is simply excellent in that part of the voyage dealing with the
wreck. _Peter Lauridsen's Vitus Bering translated from the Danish by
Olson_ covers all three aims of the expedition, Japanese and Arctic
voyages as well as American.

{62}

CHAPTER III

1741-1760

THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS

How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led to the
Exploitation of the Northwest Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter
from Other Fur-bearing Animals of the West--Perils of the Hunt

When the castaway crew of Vitus Bering looked about for means to exist
on the barren islands where they were wrecked, they found the kelp beds
and seaweed fields of the North Pacific literally alive with a little
animal, which the Russians called "the sea-beaver." Sailors of
Kamchatka and eastern Siberia knew the sea-beaver well, for it had been
found on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, and its pelt was regarded as
priceless by Chinese and Tartar merchants. But where did this strange
denizen of northern waters live? Only in rare seasons did the herds
assemble on the rocky islets of Kamchatka and Japan. And when spring
came, the sea-beaver disappeared. Asia was not its home. Where did it
go?

Russian adventurers who rafted the coast of Siberia {63} in crazy
skiffs, related that the sea-beaver always disappeared northeastw