In turning from the vegetable products of this region, it will not be out of place, if I refer for one moment to its domestic animals, for these are necessarily associated with such products. Some time ago it was stated that cattle had not flourished at Sitka, owing to the want of proper pasturage, and the difficulty of making hay in a climate of such moisture. Hogs are more easily sustained, but, feeding on fish, instead of vegetable products, their flesh acquires a fishy taste, which does not recommend it. Nor has there been great success with poultry, for this becomes the prey of the crow, whose voracity here is absolutely fabulous. A Koloschian tribe traces its origin to this bird, which in this neighborhood might be a fit progenitor. Not content with swooping upon hens and chickens, it descends upon swine to nibble at their tails, and so successfully “that the hogs here are without tails,” and then it scours the streets so well that it is called the Scavenger of Sitka. But there are other places more favored. The grass at Kadiak is well suited to cattle, and it is supposed that sheep would thrive there. The grass at Oonalaska is famous, and Cook thought the climate good for cattle, of which we have at least one illustration. Langsdorff reports that a cow grazed here luxuriously for several years, and then was lost in the mountains. That grazing animal is a good witness. Perhaps also it is typical of the peaceful inhabitants.
5. Mineral Products.—In considering the Mineral Products, I ask attention first to the indications afforded by the early navigators. They were not geologists. They saw only what was exposed. And yet, during the long interval that elapsed, not very much has been added to their conclusions. The existence of iron is hardly less uncertain now than then. The existence of copper is hardly more certain now than then. Gold, which is so often a dangerous ignis-fatuus, did not appear to deceive them. But coal, which is much more desirable than gold, was reported by several, and once at least with reasonable certainty.
The boat that landed from Behring, when he discovered the coast, found among other things “a whetstone on which it appeared that copper knives had been sharpened.” This was the first sign of the mineral wealth which already excites such interest. At another point where Behring landed, “one of the Americans had a knife hanging by his side, of which his people took particular notice on account of its unusual make.”[132] It has been supposed that this was of iron. Next came Cook, who, when in Prince William Sound, saw “copper and iron.” In his judgment, the iron came, “through the intervention of the more inland tribes, from Hudson’s Bay, or the settlements on the Canadian lakes,” and his editor refers in a note to the knife seen by Behring as from the same quarter; but Cook thought that the copper was obtained near at home, as the natives, when engaged in barter, gave the idea, “that, having so much of this metal of their own, they wanted no more.”[133] Naturally enough, for they were not far from the Copper River. Maurelle, in 1779, landed in sight of Mount St. Elias, and he reports Indians with arrow-heads of copper, which “made the Spaniards suspect mines of this metal there.”[134] La Pérouse, who was also in this neighborhood, after mentioning that the naturalists of the expedition allowed no stone or pebble to escape observation, reports ochre, copper pyrites, garnets, schorl, granite, schist, horn-stone, very pure quartz, mica, plumbago, coal, and then adds that some of these substances announce that the mountains conceal mines of iron and copper. He reports further that the natives had daggers of iron, and sometimes of red copper; that the latter metal was common enough, serving for ornaments and for the points of arrows; and he then states the very question of Cook with regard to the acquisition of these metals. He insists also that “the natives know how to forge iron and work copper.”[135] Spears and arrows “pointed with bone or iron,” and also “an iron dagger” for each man, appear in Vancouver’s account of the natives on the parallel of 55°, just within the southern limit of Russian America.[136] Lisiansky saw at Sitka “a thin plate made of virgin copper” found on Copper River, three feet in length, and at one end twenty-two inches in breadth, with various figures painted on one side, which had come from the possession of the natives.[137] Meares reports “pure malleable lumps of copper ore in the possession of the natives,”—one piece weighing as much as a pound, said to have been obtained in barter with other natives further north,—also necklaces and bracelets “of the purest ore.”[138] Portlock, while in Cook’s Inlet, in latitude 59° 27´, at a place called Graham’s Harbor, makes another discovery. Walking round the bay, he saw “two veins of kennel coal situated near some hills just above the beach, and with very little trouble several pieces were got out of the bank nearly as large as a man’s head.” If the good captain did not report more than he saw, this would be most important; for, from the time when the amusing biographer of Lord Keeper North described that clean flaky coal which he calls “candle,” because often used for its light, but which is generally called “cannel,” no coal has been more of a household favorite. He relates, further, that, returning on board in the evening, he “tried some of the coal, and found it to burn clear and well.”[139] Add to these different accounts the general testimony of Meares, who, when dwelling on the resources of the country, boldly includes “mines which are known to lie between the latitudes of 40° and 60° north, and which may hereafter prove a most valuable source of commerce between America and China.”[140]
It is especially when seeking to estimate the mineral products that we feel the want of careful explorations. We know more of the roving aborigines than of these stationary tenants of the soil. We know more of the trees. A tree is conspicuous; a mineral is hidden in the earth, to be found by chance or science. Thus far it seems as if chance only had ruled. The Russian Government handed over the country to a trading company, whose exclusive interest was furs. The company followed its business, when it looked to wild beasts with rich skins rather than to the soil. Its mines were above ground, and not below. There were also essential difficulties in the way of exploration. The interior was practically inaccessible. The thick forest, saturated with rain and overgrown with wet mosses, presented obstacles which nothing but enlightened enterprise could overcome. Even at a short distance from the port of Sitka all effort failed, and the inner recesses of the island, only thirty miles broad, were never penetrated.
The late Professor Henry D. Rogers, in his admirable paper on the Physical Features of America, being part of his contribution to Keith Johnston’s Atlas, full of knowledge and of fine generalization, says of this northwest belt, that it is “little known in its topography to any but the roving Indians and the thinly scattered fur-trappers.” But there are certain general features which he proceeds to designate. According to him, it belongs to what is known as the tertiary period of geology, intervening between the cretaceous period and that now in progress, but including also granite, gneiss, and ancient metamorphic rocks. It is not known if the true coal measures prevail in any part, although there is reason to believe that they exist on the coast of the Arctic Ocean between Cape Lisburne and Point Barrow.
Beginning at the south, we have Sitka and its associate islands, composed chiefly of volcanic rocks, with limestone near. Little is known even of the coast between Sitka and Mount St. Elias, which, itself a volcano, is the beginning of a volcanic region occupying the peninsula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and having no less than thirty volcanoes, some extinct, but others still active. Most of the rocks here are volcanic, and the only fossiliferous beds are of the tertiary period. North of Alaska, and near the mouth of the Kwichpak, the coast seems volcanic or metamorphic, and probably tertiary, with a vein of lignite near the head of Norton Sound. At the head of Kotzebue Sound the cliffs abound in the bones of elephants and mammals now extinct, together with those of the musk-ox and other animals still living in the same latitude. From Kotzebue Sound northward, the coast has a volcanic character. Then at Cape Thompson it is called subcarboniferous, followed by rocks of the carboniferous age, being limestones, shales, and sandstones, which extend from Cape Lisburne far round to Point Barrow. At Cape Beaufort, very near the seventieth parallel of latitude, and north of the Arctic Circle, on a high ridge a quarter of a mile from the beach is a seam of coal which appears to be of the true coal measures.
From this general outline, which leaves much in uncertainty, I come to what is more important.
It is not entirely certain that iron has been found, although frequently reported. Evidence points to the south, and also to the north. Near Sitka it was reported by the Russian engineer Doroschin, although it does not appear that anything has been done to verify his report. A visitor there, as late as last year, saw excellent iron, said to be from a bed in the neighborhood, reported inexhaustible, and with abundant wood for its reduction. Then again on Kotzebue Sound specimens have been collected. At 66° 13´ Kotzebue found a false result in his calculations, which he attributes to the disturbing influence of “iron.”[141] A resident on the Yukon thinks that there is iron in that neighborhood.
Silver, also, has been reported at Sitka by the same Russian engineer who reported iron, and, like the iron, in “sufficient quantity to pay for the working.”