Age.Length.Girth.Gross weight of body.Weight of skin.Remarks.
Inches.Inches.Pounds.Pounds.
One week12 to 1410 to 10½6 to 7½1¼A male and female, being the only ones of the class handled, June 20, 1873.
Six months2425393A mean of ten examples, males and females, alike in size, November 28, 1872.
One year3825394½A mean of six examples, males and females, alike in size, July 14, 1873.
Two years4530585½A mean of thirty examples, all males, July 24, 1873.
Three years5236877A mean of thirty-two examples, all males, July 24, 1873.
Four years584213512A mean of ten examples, all males, July 24, 1873.
Five years655220016A mean of five examples, all males, July 24, 1873.
Six years726428025A mean of three examples, all males, July 24, 1873.
Eight to twenty75 to 8070 to 75400 to 50045 to 50An estimate only, calculating on the weight (when fat, and early in the season), of old bulls.

[126] Veniaminov: Zapieskie ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1842. This work of Bishop Innocent Veniaminov is the only one which the Russians can lay claim to as exhibiting anything like a history of Western Alaska, or of giving a sketch of its inhabitants and resources, that has the least merit of truth or the faintest stamp of reliability. Without it we should be simply in the dark as to much of what the Russians were about during the whole period of their occupation and possession of that country. He served, chiefly as a priest and missionary, for nineteen years, from 1823 to 1842, mainly at Oonalashka, having the Seal Islands in his parish, and was made Bishop of all Alaska. He was soon after recalled to Russia, where he became the primate of the national church, ranking second to no man in the Empire save the Czar. He was advanced in life, being more than ninety years of age when he died at Moscow, April 22, 1879. He must have been a man of fine personal presence, judging from the following description of him, noted by Sir George Simpson, who met him at Sitka in 1842, just as he was about to embark for Russia: “His appearance, to which I have already alluded, impresses a stranger with something of awe, while in further intercourse the gentleness which characterizes his every word and deed insensibly moulds reverence into love, and at the same time his talents and attainments are such as to be worthy of his exalted station. With all this, the bishop is sufficiently a man of the world to disdain anything like cant. His conversation, on the contrary, teems with amusement and instruction, and his company is much prized by all who have the honor of his acquaintance.” Sir Edward Belcher, who saw him at Kadiak in 1837, said: “He is a formidable-looking man, over six feet three inches in his boots, and athletic. He impresses one profoundly.”

[127] Definitions for Russian Names of the Rookeries, etc.—The several titles on my map that indicate the several breeding-grounds, owe their origin and have their meaning as follows:

Zapadnie signifies “westward,” and is so used by the people who live in the village.

Zoltoi signifies “golden,” so used to express a metallic shimmering of the sand there.

Ketavie signifies “of a whale” so used to designate that point where a large right whale was stranded in 1849 (?); from Russian “keet,” or “whale.”

Lukannon—so named after one Lukannon, a pioneer Russian, that distinguished himself, with one Kaiecov, a countryman, who captured a large number of sea-otters at that point, and on Otter Island, in 1787-88.

Tonkie Mees signifies “small (or “slender”) cape” [tonkie, “thin”; mees, “cape”].

Polavina literally signifies “half way” so used by the natives because it is practically half way between the salt-houses at Northeast Point and the village. Polavina Sopka, or “half-way mountain,” gets its name in the same manner.

Novastoshnah, from the Russian “novaite,” or “of recent growth,” so used because this locality in pioneer days was an island to itself; and it has been annexed recently to the mainland of St. Paul.