ness and care is demanded; the smallest change of wind, currents, or ice being noted and weighed, which means to the commanding officer days and nights of sleepless anxiety. It was in one of these seasons of anxiety that Capt. Healy spent 75 consecutive hours in the crow's nest at the masthead, his food being taken up to him.

On the 30th of July we were getting tired of our enforced delay. We had been a week off Point Belcher and Sea Horse Islands, waiting for the ice pack to swing off the shore and let us forward. That night, as we were upon deck watching the midnight sun, a large field of shore ice was seen drifting toward us. For a little the good ship held fast as the great cakes broke on her bow and ground against her sides; but by and by the pressure became too great and she dragged her anchor, and commenced drifting toward the shoals. Steam was at once raised, the anchor weighed, and the ship set at work bucking her way through the ice. Once under way the captain concluded to go on until again stopped by the ice. Threading his way carefully through masses of floating ice, he reached and anchored on the morning of July 31 off the village of Ootkeavie, near Point Barrow. Upon communicating with the shore it was found that the ice had left two days previous, and that the first vessels had arrived a few hours before. Masses of ice were still floating by in the current and grounded icebergs lay between the ship and the beach. Ootkeavie, next to Cape Prince of Wales, is the largest village on the Arctic coast, numbering about 300 people. In 1881, 1882, and 1883 it was occupied as one of the stations of the International Polar Expedition. The house built by Lieut. P. H. Ray for the use of the expedition has been leased to the Pacific Steam Whaling Company, and is used by them as a whaling station and trading post, the gentleman in charge being Mr. John W. Kelly, who has given the world an interesting monograph on the Arctic Eskimo, together with an Eskimo-English vocabulary. Both were published last spring by the United States Bureau of Education. This is also the location of the Government refuge station for shipwrecked whalers. Within the past 10 years some 2,000 sailors have been wrecked on this Arctic coast. So far they have been fortunate in finding vessels within reach to carry them south to civilization, but the occasion is liable to come any season when they will be compelled to winter here. This to a large body of men means slow starvation and death. They could not subsist on the country, and there is no adequate provision within 1,500 or 2,000 miles; and when the long Arctic winter sets in no power on earth could reach them with help. To provide against any such horrible tragedy Capt. Healy early saw the necessity of having an ample supply of provisions stored at some central place in the Arctic. The plan grew and took shape in his own mind. He enlisted his friends and the men interested in the whaling industry, particularly in New Bedford and San Francisco, and finally, after many vexatious delays that would have discouraged a less persistent man, Congress voted the money for the erection of the buildings and the procuring of the provisions.

Last year Capt. Healy brought up the materials and erected the main building, which is a low one-story building, 30 by 48 feet in size. The walls, roof, and floor are made double, as a protection against the intense cold of this high northern latitude in winter. It will accommodate 50 men comfortably; it can shelter 100 if necessary. The house has provisions for 100 men 12 months, and is apmirably adapted for its purpose. This year Capt. Healy had on board the material for the construction of a storehouse, also an additional supply of provisions, clothing, and coal.

The Ootkeavie is one of the villages selected by the United States Bureau of Education for the establishment of a school, the contract for which was given by Dr. Harris to the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. The money necessary for its establishment was generously contributed by Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, of New York. The teacher is Prof. L. M. Stevenson, of Versailles, Ohio, who reached the place on July 30, 1890. Owing to the shortness of the time and the great distance from the source of supplies, and the dangers of Arctic navigation, I was able to secure material this season for only two of the school buildings and teachers' residences to be erected in the Arctic. These were placed at Cape Prince of Wales and Point Hope. Next season I hope to erect one at Point Barrow. In the mean time, through the courtesy of Capt. Healy, representing the Treasury Department, I secured a room for the school in one of the Government buildings. This is the most northern school in America, and with but one exception in the world, being in latitude 71°23' north. At this point the trend of the continent turns to the eastward. However, on this point the ice has pushed a low ridge of sand, which extends from 8 to 10 miles farther north. On the end of this sand spit is a small village called NuED 9081

wuk. On the sand spit midway between the villages is a hunting station, where the natives congregate for weeks in summer to kill ducks, as they pass to and fro from water to water over the sand spit. Thousands upon thousands are killed here every season.

On the day of our arrival I spent the whole time on shore arranging for the school. That evening the wind that had been freshening up all afternoon increased to a gale. The barometer was going down, down, down; heavy masses of ice were drifting by when the captain gave orders to weigh anchor and make a lee on the northeast side of Point Barrow, whither 16 vessels of the whaling fleet has preceded us. In a similar storm last summer, shortly after the Bear left her anchorage at Ootkeavie, the ice came in and piled up 30 feet high on the very spot the vessel had left. The storm proved the severest we had encountered this season, changing the configuration of the coast line for miles. At Ootkeavie, 20 tons of coal just landed for the use of the Government school, was either swept out to sea or buried deep under the sand-no trace of it could be found.

All day long, on the 1st of August, the gale howled and shrieked through the rigging, but the Bear rode it out in safety. In the evening a new danger presented itself. It was found that the great ice pack, which was only 5 to 7 miles distant was closing in upon the shore, and soon we would be prisoners shut up in an ice trap. From this there would be no escape until the wind changed and drove the ice again off shore. This was the condition of things on August 1, 1888. A number of the whalers had shifted, for protection, their anchorage from the west side of Point Barrow to the east side. The wind that had increased to a gale suddenly veered around from the southwest to the north, causing a heavy sea to break upon the bar. At 9 o'clock that night, the schooner Jane Gray, parted her cables and drifted against an iceberg-knocking a large hole in her side. She filled rapidly and sank, the crew taking to the small boats. The next to slip her moorings was the bark Phoenix. She struck the bar and sunk. Her crew drifted about in small boats for six hours in that terri

ble storm before they were picked up. Then the barks Mary and Susan, and Fleetwing went on to the bar and pounded to pieces. Several other vessels parted their cables, sustaining more or less danger.

In that fearful storm, when the waters of the Arctic were lashed into billows of foam, hurling masses of ice about like driving snow flakes, in the midst of snapping chains and crushing spars and tattered sails, when it seemed certain destruction to lower a small boat, the revenue cutter Bear rode the storm in safety, and her trained crew, under the direction of Cap. Healy, were venturing their lives and performing prodigies of valor in rescuing shipwrecked sailors. When the storm abated, 160 rescued men were on the decks of the Bear. On this occasion, fortunately for us, the storm abated before the ice reached us, and August 2 gave us a beautiful afternoon, of which I availed myself to go ashore.

The western and northern coast of America terminates at Point Barrow in latitude 71° 23′ north and longitude 156° 10′ west. Beyond this the coast trends to the eastward and southward. On the east side of the point is the native village of Nuwuk, which consists of a number of underground houses. But few families were home at the time of our visit, and they were mainly living in tents outside of their winter huts. The first white man to visit this place was Master Elson, of H. M. S. Bossom (Capt Beechey's expedition), in August, 1826. One hundred and forty-six miles to the eastward in Return Reef, the westernmost point reached by Sir John Franklin in his journey to form a junction with Capt. Beechey's expedition. The next visit by white men, was that of Capt. Simpson, of the Hudson Bay Company, who, in 1837, made the journey from the Mackenzie River.

During the winters of 1852, 1853, and 1854 H. M. S. Plover wintered in Elson Bay to the east of the point. Now a United States revenue marine vessel and many whaling ships visit the place annnally.

Soon after returning to the Bear from the village, the captain was visited by Capt. Sherman, of the steam whaler William Lewis, and informed that the tender of the New Bedford whaling fleet, the bark Thomas Pope, which we had left but a few days before at anchor at Point Hope, was wrecked in the breakers at that point, on the 28th of July, and that the crew wished to be received on board the Government vessel and taken back to civilization. Consent having been obtained, the ten shipwrecked men were soon after sent on board. As the captain had on board the Bear the materials for a Government storehouse at the Point Barrow refuge station, he concluded to return at once to that place, and discharge his freight, that more comfortable quarters might be made for the shipwrecked sailors.

The weather was beautiful, the ocean smooth, and the sail exhilarating. At midnight the sun was visible in the northwest, and the full moon in the southeast. At 1 a. m., August 3, the ship anchored at Ootkeavie, where we remained a week while the ship's carpenters were building the Government storehouse, and the captain inspecting the refuge station. During the week, among the callers was Mr. J. B. Vincent, the hero of the shipwreck of the bark Napoleon, off the cost of Siberia. Mr. Vincent is now second mate on the whaling bark Abram Barker.

One afternoon Capt. Gifford, of the bark Abram Barker, came on board and represented that his engineer, a Russian, had made two or three attempts to disable the engine, upon which the safety of the ship depended, that he had the man in irons, and requested Capt. Healy to take him off his hands, as a dangerous character. The accused man himself joined. in the request, and was received on board. This is another instance of the many sided and anomalous character of the officers of a revenue vessel in these waters beyond the reach of courts and law. This is another instance where the commanding officer of the revenue service should have power to investigate, arrest, and commit criminals to the United States district court for trial. As it is, a man who endeavored to wreck a ship, and endangered many lives, goes free.

In 1882 Lieut. Ray's party dug a well to the depth of 37.5 feet for observing the temperature of the earth. The entire distance was made through frozen sand and gravel. At the bottom of the shaft the temperature remained, winter and summer, uniformly at 12 F. At the depth of 20 feet a tunnel was run 10 feet and then a room 10 by 12 feet size excavated for a cellar. In this room the temperature never rises above 22° F. Birds and meat, placed in this room, freeze solid, and remain so until taken to the kitchen and thawed out for cooking. While at the station I descended into this unique storage house. The carcasses of several reindeer and dozens of eider ducks were taken from it, and presented to the ship, making a very welcome addition to our table fare.

In the spring of 1883, 500 ducks were stored there at one time. At Ootkeavie the captain, at the request of the father, received on board a half-breed Eskimo boy, about 5 years of age, who is to be forwarded to the industrial training school at Sitka, for an education.

On Saturday, August 9, the inspection of the refuge station being completed, the storehouse finished, and arrangements for the school perfected, preparations were made to return southward. At 4:10 p. m. the anchor was weighed and the vessel steamed north a few miles to procure the last letters of the whaling fleet. The Stars and Stripes were hoisted to the top of the mainmast as a signal that we were about sailing. Soon after anchoring in the midst of the fleet the boats began arriving, bringing off packages of letters. At 9:15 p. m. the flag was lowered, the anchor weighed, and the Bear steamed slowly away en route to civilization. As we passed by the ships, one after another dipped their flags and bade us an Arctic farewell, with many wishes for a safe voyage. Great masses of heavy black clouds lay along the whole northern horizon, like a curtain to hide the unknown regions beyond. To the east of us lay the low land spit that marks the northern limit of the continent, the native village of underground huts, and the white canvas and skin covered tents of the visiting natives from the interior. To the west of us the sun was preparing, at 10 o'clock p. m., for a most gorgeous sunset; and south of us, as if symbolical of the lands of light, privilege, and comfort, to which we were to return, there was not a cloud to be seen in the beautiful sky. At 10 o'clock p. m. we passed the school and refuge station, and soon they faded from sight and were left far behind us, in their Arctic solitude, until the Bear again visits them a twelvemonth hence.

On the 11th of August the captain anchored off Cape Sabine to water ship. In this vicinity are extensive and valuable coal banks. ́On the beach were several deserters from the whaling ships, who begged hard to be received on board and taken out of the country. One of their number had been drowned. Every year men desert from the whalers; some of these die from exposure, others are picked up by the Bear, as in the present case, and a few remain in the country, descending at once to the level of the natives, demoralizing and doing them much more harm than a missionary can do good.

On the 12th, in rounding Cape Lisburne in a gale, the jib boom and sails were carried away, and the ship ran back and anchored in the lea of the cape. The country in the vicinity of the cape has been called the flower garden of the Arctic, on account of the number`and variety of beautiful wild flowers. On the 13th, although the storm had not fully subsided, the Bear was got under way, and that afternoon anchored by the hull of the wrecked Thomas Pope, abreast of the schoolhouse at Point Hope. I went ashore, but found the schoolhouse locked up, and Dr. Driggs, the teacher, absent.

On the morning of August 15, we bade good-by to Point Hope, and the following morning, at 8:40 o'clock, dropped anchor off Cape Blossom, Kotzebue Sound. The day being pleasant I accompanied an officer to the great interna tional fair of the Arctic, some 12 miles distant from our anchorage. There were about 1,500 natives assembled from many and widely separated sections of the country-from Alaska and Siberia. Many were living in tents, but fully half had constructed shelters by turning their umiak 3 or boats upside down. As I passed their shelters, my attention was again and again called to the sick. To be sick beyond the reach of a physician, with poor care and poorer accommodations, and without knowledge of even the commoner remedies, is distress itself. As I see these people, so kindly disposed in life, with a smile of welcome to the stranger, and then see them languishing in their comfortless shelters, with but a few days or weeks removed from death, my heart goes out to them in inex pressible longing, and I wish I could tell them the story of the Cross and introduce them to the hopes and joys of the gospel. Perhaps I may, at no distant day, secure for their children a mission and boarding school.

The beach was covered with racks, upon which hung long rows of salmon, drying for winter food. At 3:35 p. m., on the 27th, having a fair wind, the captain weighed anchor and sailed for Cape Prince of Wales. On the afternoon of the 19th, we passed through Bering Strait, and bade good-by to the Arctic Ocean. The sea was so rough that the captain gave up all hope of being able to land at the cape. But during the afternoon the wind died out and the sea calmed down, so that he was able to run in shore and anchor abreast of the village at 6 o'clock p. m. We could not have landed through the surf the day before, the day after, or at any other time that day. God's providence stayed the waves sufficiently long for us to visit the shore and transact our business. Had we passed by without stopping the teachers would have been unable to send down their orders for the annual supply of provisions, and next year they would have been unsupplied. As it was I had four hours with them. The wind increasing, at 10 o'clock we were again under way. On the 20th we steamed by King and Sledge islands (the sea being too rough to land), and at noon on the 21st dropped anchor off St. Michael, Norton Sound. Soon after we had a call from Mr. Henry Newmann, agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, and Rev. William H. Judge, a Jesuit priest, who has lately come to the country to engage in the school work of the Roman Catholic Church on the Yukon River.

St. Michael is located on the first good site for a trading post north of the delta of the Yukon River, and is the headquarters of the trade of the Yukon valley. To this point the furs collected at the trading posts in the interior, some of them 2,000 miles distant, are brought for reshipment to San Francisco. About half a mile from the trading post is a small native village. The trading post was established by the Russians in 1835, and is now occupied by the Alaska Commercial Company. A blockhouse and some of the original buildings are still standing. Through the courtesy of Mr. Henry Newmann, two small Russian cannon, one of which was originally used in the defense of the place and the other in protecting the boating expeditions up the river, were secured for the collection of the Alaska Society of Natural History. At St. Michael 1 received a good account of the schools, nine of which receive their supplies and mails at this point.

It is said of one of the missionaries, who is some 2,000 miles, more or less, up the river, that when he saw his freight bill of $125 per ton for transportation from St. Michael to his station, he added a petition in his prayer that freight might be reduced. During the stay at St. Michael two interesting boys, William and George Frederickson, from Anvik, on the Yukon River, were received on board to accompany me East. Their father, a trader, is sending them to New York for an education. After a pleasant visit of two days, the Bear took her departure for Nunivak island. On the following Sabbath night, and through all Monday, we were steaming around the island, that the captain might secure the census. Finding that the people were scattered, hunting and fishing, and be ing warned by the few natives he met of dangerous rocks and reefs, and the waters being uncharted, on Monday evening the captain turned around and steamed for St. George Island, which we reached on the morning of August 27. Nearing the island, a schooner was seen crowding on all sail to get out of our way. As the captain had not yet received his instructions, which were awaiting his arrival at Unalaska, and had no authority to make any seizures, the schooner was allowed to proceed unmolested. She was one of the many pirati cal vessels that are fitted out at Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, to hunt seals in Bering Sea contrary to law. In 1886 there were 21 such vessels from Victoria alone, and the catch was 35,556 skins. In 1887 there were

20 vessels from Victoria, 8 of which were seized; the catch was 27,624 skins. In 1888 there were 19 British vessels, with a total catch of nearly 30,000 skins. In 1889, 23 British vessels, and this year 22 British and 12 American vessels engaged in seal piracy. Their methods of operation are so wasteful that the number of skins taken does not begin to represent the number of seals killed. They necessarily hunt out to sea, where they largely kill the females heavy with their young. A large percentage of the seals shot sink before they can be secured, so that many authorities state that the 20,000 to 30,000 secured represent from 150,000 to 200,000 seals destroyed. This wasteful method is rapidly annihilating the fur seal, so that if our granddaughters are to have seal-skin sacques the Government will need to take more stringent measures for the protection of the seal. The indiscriminate slaughter of the seal while passing to their breeding grounds has caused such a scarcity on the seal islands, that while the Government allows 100,000 males to be taken annually, this year the vessels have been able to secure but 21,000 skins.

The piratical vessels fitted out at Victoria, British Columbia, to hunt seal have caused the international complications known as the "Bering Sea difficulty," which are now the subject of negotiations between the State Department and Great Britain.

WHALING INDUSTRY.

As early as the year 1841 fifty whaling vessels had found their way from New Bedford and Boston to Bering Sea. From 1842 and onward for a number of years annual complaints were made to the Russian Government by the RussianAmerican Fur Company of the encroachments of the Yankee whalers. In 1852 the whaling fleet had increased to 278 vessels, and the value of the catch to $14,000,000. This was probably the most profitable year of the whaling industry in Alaska. Since then it has, in the main, decreased, until in 1862 the value of the catch was less than $800,000. This increased again in 1867 to $3,200,000. In 1880 the first steamer was added to the whaling fleet, being sent out from San Francisco. Last year there were 26 vessels from San Francisco and 23 from New New Bedford engaged in the trade. They captured 151 whales, which yielded 213,070 pounds of whale bone and 12,243 barrels of oil. This season there are 10 steamers and 38 sailing vessels employed in these northern waters with a very light catch up to midsummer. The whaling vessels are manned upon the cooperative plan; the men instead of being paid regular wages receive a percentage of the profits. The captain on the sailing vessels receives a twelfth, the first mate a nineteenth, the second mate and boat headers each a twenty-fifth, the third mate a thirtieth, the fourth mate, carpenter, cooper, and steward each a fiftieth, and the sailors each a one hundred and seventy-fifth. On steamers the rates are a little lower. A captain's wages range from nothing to $7,000 or $8,000, according to the number of whales taken. If the ship gets six whales during a cruise the captain will have about $1,400 and a sailor $100. The sailors usually receive an advance of $60, and during the cruise are allowed to draw clothing, tobacco, etc., from the ship's supplies (called the "slop chest") to the amount of $60 to $80. Consequently if there are no profits to divide the sailor is sure of about $140. The captains and higher officers are usually men of more than ordinary character and intelligence-typical American seamen of the best kind. The common sailors on a whaler are made up largely of Portuguese, Italians, South Sea Islanders, and others of an inferior grade, some of them being, emphatically, hard cases.

A few years ago whales were plentiful in the North Pacific, Bering, and Okhotsk Seas. Then they were followed through Bering Straits a little way into the Arctic. Then farther and farther the whales have been driven into the inaccessible regions of the North, until now the whaling fleet annually rounds the most northern extremity of the American continent, and this year, for the first time, a few of them will winter in the Arctic, at the mouth of the Makenzie River. To escape this deadly pursuit the whales try to hide in the ice, and after them the whalers boldly force their way. The business is so dangerous that during the last 20 years more than 100 vessels have been lost. The value of the whale fisheries consists not so much in the oil taken, as in the whale-bone, which is taken from his mouth; this is worth between $4.50 and $5 per pound. The product of a fair sized, bowhead whale, at present prices, is worth about $8,000. A good sized whale weighs about 150 tons, and contains about 2,000 pounds of whalebone after it is cleaned. His tongue is 15 feet long, from 6 to 8 feet in thickness, and contains 12 barrels of oil. His open mouth is from 15 to 20 feet across;