tinsmith business, was taken sick from peritonitis, and died in the school hospital on the 10th of June, 1890.

Henry Phillips, having learned the printer's trade, has now gone into the machine shop, where he is making good progress.

Florence Wells, Blanche Lewis, and Olga Hilton are still at Northfield. Flora Campbell has been changed from the school at Northfield to one at Orange, N. J., where she is receiving drill as a kindergarten teacher.

Minnie Shotter having developed a weakness in her eyes, will return home to Douglas, Alaska, where she will teach instrumental music.

This coming fall, David Skuviuk and George Nocochluke, Eskimo boys from the Kuskoquim Valley, will be taken East by Mrs. Bachman, and placed in the Indian training school at Carlisle, Pa.

George and William Fredericks, of the Yukon Valley, will be sent by the Episcopalians to the Episcopal Institute at Burlington, Vt., Edward Marsden of the Presbyterian training school at Sitka, to Marietta College, Ohio, and Shawan Sheshdaak of Fort Wrangel, to the Educational Home at Philadelphia.

Through the liberality of Mr. Rudolph Neumann of the Alaska Commercial Company, I have arranged to send to the California normal school for teachers at San Jose, Miss Mattie Salamatoff, orphan daughter of a former Russo-Greek priest at Belkoffsky.

When Alaska secures much needed laws to increase regular attendance of the native children at school, then there will be room and a call for many native teachers.

SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED IN ARCTIC ALASKA.

In the extension of the school system over all Alaska a commencement has been made within the Arctic Circle. Contract schools have been established at Point Barrow, Point Hope, and Cape Prince of Wales, the three principal villages on the Arctic coast of Alaska.

This commencement involves much that is new and unusual in school work. The location of the schools is in a region so remote and inaccessible that they are outside the world's commerce. In August, when the ice will permit, a few whalers sail by, and a United States revenue marine steamer makes an annual call, bringing the yearly mail and supplies. With the departure of the steamer the settlement is cut off for another eleven months from the world. There are years, however, when the northernmost school, Point Barrow, can not be reached at all during the season, and the teacher will be two years without a mail or a fresh supply of provisions. And there is always the liability that a succession of severe seasons will isolate him for several years.

Under the shadow of this possibility it is a relief to know that at this station, where the greatest danger is, the Government has a refuge station for shipwrecked whalers, with provisions in store sufficient to last 20 men 5 years. If this supply should be exhausted before relief came, the teacher would be compelled to adopt the diet of the country, to wit, whale blubber and seal meat.

The food, clothing, and supplies for the teachers and the supplies for the schools must needs be taken annually on a Government vessel or a chartered schooner from San Franciso, between 3,000 and 4,000 distant.

In an area as large as all of the New England and Middle States combined, the three schools recently established occupy only the strategic places, separated hundreds of miles from each other. They are the central points from which future schools may be established.

The location of these schools in a region where the winter term is one long night presents new problems. The constant need of lamps in the schoolroom is a matter of course. But a greater difficulty is experienced in the confusion of time which arises from the absence of the sun to mark the alternate periods of day and night.

Without a marked difference in the light between noon and midnight, all knowledge of time among a barbarous people becomes lost. They know no difference between 9 o'clock a. m. and 9 o'clock p. m. Consequently, when the school bell rings out into the Arctic darkness at 9 o'clock a. m. some of the pupils have just gone to bed, and are in their first sound sleep. Roused up and brought to the schoolroom, they fall asleep in their seats. Many of the pupils have come to school without their breakfasts; with sleepy bodies and empty stomachs they are not in the best condition to make progress in their studies. Then, bearing in mind the fact that these children are wholly undisciplined and unaccustomed to restraint, the greatness of the task before the teacher begins to be appreciated.

The schools are for the Arctic Eskimo, with their strange tongue and unwritten language. Consequently at the opening of school the teacher could not understand what the pupils said or the pupils understand the instruction of the teacher. In two or three schools the teachers were unable to secure interpreters.

The schools being located among an uncivilized and barbarous people, living in earth huts and disregarding all the laws of health, it became necessary, not only to erect the schoolhouse, but also the teacher's residence, and, as far as possible, make both cold-proof with double walls, floor, and roof.

The materials for these houses had to be taken from San Francisco on a chartered vessel, landed through the breakers on a coast without a harbor, and carried on the shoulders of men and women to the site of the buildings.

Again, the schools were located among a people who were not only uncivilized, but also were reported by the whalers to be savages. At one of the stations whalers have for years been afraid to drop anchor lest they should be attacked and murdered by the natives. At that station two young men are in charge of the school. They are the only white men in that region and thousands of miles from troops or even a policeman. Further, the schools are located among a famishing population where the teachers have to do not only with the intellectual training, but also with the physical well-being, the general uplifting of the whole population out of barbarism into civilization. This involves questions of personal cleanliness, health, diet, improved habitations, drainage, and above all at present an increased food supply. The people are on the verge of starvation. and the schools must provide and instruct them in new industries which will furnish a better support.

As the schools will necessarily be much of the time out of the reach of control and supervision, the coöperation of well-known and responsible missionary organizations was sought, with the result that the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church took charge of the school at Cape Prince of Wales, on Bering Straits, the Episcopal Missionary Society the one at Point Hope, and the Presbyterian Home Missionary Society the one at Point Barrow. The money for the establishment of the school at Point Barrow and the erection of the buildings was contributed by Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, of New York; that for Cape Prince of Wales by the Congregational Church of Southport, Conn.

Cape Prince of Wales is the most western school in America, and Point Barrow the most northern. Point Barrow is farther north than the celebrated North Cape of Europe. These schools are assisted by the United States Bureau of Education. While negotiations were in progress with the missionary societies, an appeal was published in a number of the newspapers of the United States for volunteer teachers for the schools to be established at Point Barrow and Cape Prince of Wales. The call set forth the facts that the schools were beyond the pale of civilization, where communication with the outside world could be had but once a year; that they were among a barbarous and perhaps savage people, where the risks were so great that ladies would not be allowed to go, and where the lives of the men would not be guarantied. Notwithstanding the hazardous and trying nature of the work, there were 21 applicants for the schools, some 12 of whom were ladies.

Prof. L. M. Stevenson, of Versailles, Ohio, was selected for Point Barrow; Dr. John B. Driggs, of Delaware, for Point Hope; and Mr. H. R. Thornton of Hampden Sidney, Va., and Mr. W. T. Lopp, of Valley City, Ind., for Cape Prince of Wales.

A vessel, the Oscar and Hattie, was chartered at San Francisco to take up the materials for the buildings and supplies for the teachers and schools. The teachers found passage as far as Port Clarence, Bering Sea, on the steamer Jennie, tender to the whaling fleet, and from Port Clarence to destination on the whalers.

I was kindly furnished transportation on the U. S. R. M. S. Bear.. At noon on the Fourth of July the Bear dropped anchor in the open roadstead off the village Kingegan, Bering Straits. That afternoon, on the shores separating the Arctic Ocean from Bering Sea, and in front of the snow-capped mountains of Asia, plainly visible for miles, we celebrated our Fourth of July by laying the foundations of the first public-school building in Arctic Alaska. Upon the completion of the school building the Bear weighed anchor, sailed through Bering Straits into the Arctic Ocean, and 200 miles to the northward dropped anchor under the light of the midnight sun at Point Hope.

Here again all hands that could be spared were sent ashore to work at the

school building. After completing the building we again turned our faces toward the North Pole.

After various detentions by the great ice field of the Arctic, on the 31st day of July we reached Point Barrow, over 800 miles north and east of Bering Straits. The next day, running before a gale, we rounded the northern end of the continent and anchored on the castern side of the Point.

On the northernmost bluff of the continent was established probably the northernmost school in the world.

SUPERVISION.

Through the special permission of Hon. William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, and the courtesies of Capt. L. G. Shepard, Chief of the Revenue Marine Service, Capt. M. A. Healy, commanding the U. S. R. M. S. Bear, and Capt. A. C. Coulson, commanding the U. S. R. M. S. Rush, I was able to inspect, for the first time in four years, the schools at Afognag, Kadiak, Unga, and Unalaska, and also visit the settlements on the Bering Sea and Arctic coasts of Alaska.

Mr. Windom, in furnishing me with transportation, recognized the fact that the revenue vessels visiting the native settlements of Alaska had, "in addition to routine duties, the philanthropic work of caring for and assisting the native peoples."

In a letter concerning the trip he says: "The ordinary duties of the revenue marine have been greatly augmented on the North Pacific and Arctic station by the service which it renders in affording aid and protection to the natives, who are often in peril and distress from the rigors of the climate, the exposed condition of the country, and their lack of knowledge in the ways of civilization. The service is doing good missionary work, and is an important factor among the instruments which are being utilized to improve the interests of these people."

The trip of the U. S. R. M. S. Bear was the ordinary annual cruise of one of the U. S. Revenue Marine steamers in Alaskan waters.

Season after season she goes north in the spring to enforce the revenue laws and practically do police duty around the seal islands of Bering Sea and the native settlements stretching from Kadiak 1,500 miles to Attu, and from Unalaska 1,200 miles northward to Point Barrow. In vast stretches of coast (from 10,000 to 12,000 miles is a season's cruise), unknown to civilization, the flag of the revenue steamer is the only evidence of the authority of the Government ever seen and the only protection afforded. When Capt. Healy commenced cruising in these waters, schooners loaded with rum, were visiting every native settlement along the vast coast, and even some of the whalers were not above trafficking in the accursed stuff. The temptations were great, when a bottle of whisky would purchase $200 worth of furs, and the profits were a thousand fold. At that time intemperance was threatening the extinction of the native race. Through the vigilance and tact of Capt. Healy this trade has been almost entirely broken up. It is also the duty of the revenue cutter, as far as possible, to be on hand to assist when disaster or shipwreck overtakes the whalers, to search after missing vessels, to note the bearing of different points of land, islands, etc., to determine the position of all bars and reefs encountered, to keep a record of tides and currents, to take meteorological and astronomical observations for the benefit of commerce, to investigate scientific phenomena, and inquire into the mode of life, political and social relations of the native population, and make collections for the Smithsonian Institution, and to perform many other services beneficial to commerce, science, and humanity.

This year, in addition to the ordinary routine, the commanding officer is charged with several special duties. In 1887-'88, Congress voted $1,000 for presents to the natives near Cape Navarin, Asia, as a reward for having fed and cared for some American sailors wrecked on their coast. These presents were to be distributed on this trip.

Then, scattered through Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean are islands and lands so remote and inaccessible that the ordinary census taker can not reach them; hence the commanding officer of the revenue cutter was appointed a special agent for the taking of the Eleventh Census in those places. This gave me an opportunity of visiting these little known regions.

Again, the steamer was charged with the duty of conveying the material for a storehouse and a supply of provisions for the Government refuge station at Point Barrow; and last, but not least, the commanding officer was authorized to

furnish such assistance as he could in the erection of school buildings at Cape Prince of Wales and Point Hope, and give the general agent of education for Alaska every facility for visiting the native settlements on the coast.

At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 3d of June, 1890, we steamed out of the harbor of Seattle. At 9 o'clock that evening we swept by the light-house at Cape Flattery and passed out to sea.

For nine days and nights we sailed steadily west, without seeing land or sail and scarcely a bird or fish. On the evening of June 12 land was sighted, which proved to be Unimak Island. The next morning, rising early, we were pas-ing through Akutan Pass. The storm and fogs and rough waves of the preceding days were gone; the water was as quiet as a millpond. Pinnacles of rocks, isolated and in groups, were to the right and to the left of us; bold headlands thousands of feet in height; mountain slopes covered with mosses of every variety of shade and great patches of snow; volcanoes with their craters hid in the clouds were on either side, and all lighted up by the morning sun made a scene of surpassing loveliness and beauty. In due time we swept by Cape Erskine, rounded Priests Rock, and were in Unalaska Bay. Twelve miles up the bay and we were at Iliuiuk, better known as Unalaska, the commercial metropolis of the Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea.

The Aleutian Archipelago consists of a narrow chain of islands, extending from the end of the Alaskan Peninsula in a general westerly direction for a thou sand miles to Attu, the westernmost limit of the land possessions of the United States. This chain of islands separates Bering Sea from the Pacific Ocean, and gives coloring to the Russian claim of a "closed sea."

The discovery of these islands by Europeans is due to the unbounded ambition of Peter the Great of Russia, who, having founded a Russian empire in Europe and Asia, would also found one in America.

The western coast of America had been explored as far as Cape Mendocino, California, but from California north it was a vast unknown region-"the great northern mystery, with its Anian strait and silver mountains and divers other fabulous tales."

To solve these mysteries, to determine whether Asia had land communication with America, to learn what lands and people were beyond his possessions on the castern coast of Siberia, and to extend his empire from Asia to America, Peter the Great, in 1724, ordered two expeditions of exploration and placed them both under the command of Vitus Bering, a Dane in the Russian service. expedition set out overland through Siberia on January 28, 1725, under Lieut. Chirikoff.

The

Three days later the Emperor died, but the expeditions were energetically pushed by his widow and daughter. The first expedition, from 1725 to 1730, explored Bering Straits, and settled the question of separation between Asia and America.

The second expedition was fitted out by the Empress Catharine, and consisted of two vessels, the St. Paul, commanded by Bering himself, and the St. Peter, in charge of Alexei Ilich Chirikoff, second in command. The expedition was accompanied by several scientists and sailed from Avatcha Bay, Kamtschatka, on June 4, 1741. This ill-fated expedition discovered the mainland of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. But the remnant that brought back the news of the discovery of northwestern America, also brought with them the beautiful furs of the sea otter, and wide-awake merchants were not slow to see their opportu nity. As the adventurous hunt for the little sable had led the hardy Cossack and extended Russian dominion from the Ural Mountains across Asia to Kamtschatka and Bering Sea, so now the hunt for the sea otter was to extend Russian settlement 2,000 miles along the coast of America.

A few months after the return of Bering's expedition in the spring of 1743, Emilian Bassof formed a partnership with a wealthy Moscow merchant, built a small vessel named the Kapiton, and commenced the fur trade of the newly discovered islands. On his second trip, in 1745, he collected 1,600 sea otters, 2,000 fur seals, and 2.000 blue Arctic foxes.

This was the commencement on the part of the merchants of Siberia of a mad race after the furs of Alaska- a race o mad that they could not wait the securing of proper materials for the building of safe vessels and the procuring of trained seamen. Boats were hastily constructed of planks fastened together with raw hide or sealskin thongs. In these unseaworthy boats, without charts or compass, they boldly ventured to sea, and the half of them found a watery grave. Those that did return in safety with a fair cargo received from 2,000 to 3,000 roubles each as their share of the profit.

On the 26th of September, 1745, for the first time the discharge of firearms was heard on the Aleutian Islands. A native was shot on the island of Agoto by a party of Russians under Chuprof.

Then commenced a reign of lust, robbery, and bloodshed, which lasted for 50 years. One Feodor Solovief is reported to have alone killed 3,000 Aleuts. Veniaminof, who was the leading Greek priest and first bishop in Alaska, declares that during that dreadful period Aleuts were used as targets for Russian practice in firing; that one Solovief, finding the inhabitants of several of the Unalaska villages assembled on Egg Island, made an attack, slaughtering men, women, and children, until the sea was covered with the blood of the slain.

One Lazaref threw over precipices, cut with knives, and split open with axes a number of Aleuts.

Whole villages were massacred by the Russians, so that Lieut. Sary, chief of the Russian navy, who accompanied Capt. Billings's expedition in 1790, declares that it was a very moderate estimate to place the number murdered at 5,000.

This first half-century of Russian occupation can be roughly summarized as follows: On the credit side, from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 worth of furs; on the debit side, thousands of Russians drowned, died of scurvy, and killed by natives, and thousands of natives needlessly murdered by the Russians.

A better day dawned for the poor natives of Alaska in the coming of Grigor Ivanovich Shelikof, a merchant of Okhotsk, who has been justly styled the founder of the Russian colonies in Alaska. He introduced reforms in the methods of hunting, redressed abuses, formed permanent settlements, and procured concessions and power from the Emperor.

The work commenced by him was afterwards enlarged by Alexander Baranof. The largest and most important of the Aleutian Islands is Unalaska. This island is 120 miles long and 40 wide. It contains three separate groups of mountains. It also has an active volcano, Makushin, 5,474 feet high. From a cave at the southern end of the island were taken eleven mummies for the Smithsonian Institution.

It also possesses several deep bays, of which Unalaska is one of the longest. In their season codfish, salmon, halibut, and herring abound in those waters.

The island was first sighted by Lieut. Chirikof, of Bering's expedition, on the 4th of September, 1741. The first landing was made by a merchant of Turinsk, Stepan Glottof, in the vessel Yulian. This was in the fall of 1759. Glottof gave the world the first map of that region, and is said to have baptized many of the natives into the Greek faith.

To the average American the Aleutian Islands seem so remote, and concerning them so little is known, that but few think of them as having been the theater of stirring events and as having a history extending back one hundred and fifty years, but such is the case.

Unalaska shares with the other islands in that history. For thirty years it was a struggle between the rapacious, cruel, and bloody fur-trader and the Aleuts striving to preserve their homes and freedom. The end was the complete sub- . jugation of the natives.

In January, 1762, a party of fur hunters, under the leadership of Golodof and Pushkaref, landed upon the island. Owing to their excesses against the natives, several were killed and the rest fled the island the following May. But the island was too rich in furs to be given up. That same fall another party came under the leadership of Drushinnin. Outraging the natives, the latter commenced on the 4th of December a series of attacks which resulted in the breaking up of the Russian settlement, only 4 out of 150 men escaping with their lives.

In August, 1763, Capt. Korovin, of the vessel St. Troitska, formed a settlement. This also was broken up by the natives.

In 1764 Capt. Solovief formed a settlement. His stay on the island was marked by such bloody atrocities that the few who survived were completely subjugated. His name has come through a hundred years of local tradition as the synonym of cruelty. Among other things, it is said that he experimented upon the penetrative power of his bullets by binding 12 Aleuts in a row and then firing through them at short range. The bullet stopped at the ninth man.

In 1770, when the American colonists were preparing themselves for the struggle for independence, the struggle of the Aleuts was ending. They had given their lives in vain. The few who were left could no longer maintain the unequal conflict and were reduced to practical slavery.

But Unalaska has since seen better days and been visited by a better class. On the 16th of September, 1768, Capt. Levashef, in charge of a Russian scientific expedition, dropped his anchor and wintered on the island.