extremity of the Alaskan peninsula toward the peninsula of
Kamchatka; they constitute part of the District of Alaska,
U.S.A. The islands, of which an alternative collective
name is the Catherine Archipelago, comprise four groups--the
Fox, Andreanof, Rat and Near Islands. They are all included
between 52 deg. and 55 deg. N. lat. and 172 deg. E. and 163 deg. W. long.
The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska
has a S.W. trend, but near the 129th meridian its direction
changes to the N.W. This change of direction corresponds
to a curve in the line of volcanic fissures which have
contributed their products to the building of the islands.
Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in
the Kurile Islands, the Japanese chain, the Philippines,
&c. The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands
and least in the western. The island chain is really a
western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland.
The great majority of the islands bear evident marks of
volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on
the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of
the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain
crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of
lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn and the
approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising
immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.
The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and
fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are
almost constant. The summers are much cooler than on the
mainland at Sitka (q.v.), but the winter temperature of
the islands and of south-eastern Alaska is very nearly the
same. The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most
important island of the group, is about 38 deg. F.; being about
30 deg. for January and about 52 deg. for August. The highest
and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands are 78 deg. and
5 deg. . The average annual amount of rainfall is about 80 in.,
and Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said
to be the rainiest place within the territory of the United
States. The growing season lasts about 135 days, from early
in May till late in September, but agriculture is limited
to the raising of a few vegetables. With the exception of
some stunted willows the islands are practically destitute of
trees, but are covered with a luxuriant growth of herbage,
including grasses, sedges and many flowering plants. On the
less mountainous islands the raising of sheep and reindeer
is believed to be practicable. The principal occupations
of the natives have always been fishing and hunting, and the
women weave basketry of exquisite fineness. From the end
of the 18th century the Russian fur traders had settlements
here for the capture of the seal and the sea otter and the
blue and the Arctic fox. Under the American regime seal
fishing off the Aleutians save by the natives has never been
legal, but the depletion of the Pribilof herd, the almost
complete extinction of the sea otter, and the rapid decrease
of the foxes and other fur animals, have threatened the
Aleuts (as the natives are commonly called) with starvation.
In recent years enterprising traders have raised foxes by
culture and by especially protecting certain small islands,
and this has furnished employment to whole communities of
natives. Fish and sea-fowl are extremely abundant.
The natives are rather low in stature, but plump and well
shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes and long
black hair. They are a branch of the Esquimauan family, but
differ greatly from the Eskimo of the mainland in language,
habits, disposition and mental ability. They were good
fighters until they were cowed by the treatment of the Russians,
who practically reduced them to slavery. Sporadic efforts
to Christianize the Aleuts were made in the latter half of
the 18th century, but little impression was made before the
arrival in 1824 of Father Ivan Venyaminov, who in 1840 became
the first Greek bishop of Alaska. While the missionaries
of the Greek Church have nominally converted the natives to
Christianity, white adventurers have more effectually converted
them to various bad habits. In dress and mode of life they
have adopted outwardly civilized customs. From the position
of the Aleutian islands, stretching like a broken bridge
from Asia to America, some ethnologists have supposed that by
means of them America was first peopled. Raised shore-lines,
occasional earthquakes, and slow measurable elevation of the
land about active volcanoes, indicate that elevation is now in
progress, but the geological evidence shows no sign of former
submergence of a connecting isthmus. There is granite at the
core of the Shaler range of mountains in southern Unalaska.
It is stated that before the advent of the Russians there were
25,000 Aleuts on the archipelago, but that the barbarities of the
traders eventually reduced the population to one-tenth of this
number. The number of Aleuts in 1890 was reported as 968;
the total population of the archipelago in 1900 was 2000.
The principal settlements are on the Unalaska Island. Of
these Iliuliuk (also called Unalaska), the oldest, settled in
1760-1775, has a custom house, a Russian-Greek Church, and a
Methodist Mission and orphanage, and is the headquarters for
a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters which
patrol the sealing grounds of the Pribilofs; adjacent is Dutch
Harbor (so named, it is said, because a Dutch vessel was the
first to enter it), which is an important port for Bering Sea
commerce. The volcano Makushin (5691 ft.) is visible from
Iliuliuk, and the volcanic islets Bogoslof and Grewingk, which
rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30
m. W. of the bay. The latter is still active; in 1906 a new
cone rose between the two earlier islets, and in 1907 still
another: these were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption
on the 1st of September 1907. The population of Unalaska
Island in 1900 was 575 Aleuts and 66 whites. The Commander
Islands group near the Asiatic coast is geographically,
but since the acquisition of the Russian possessions in
America not politically, a part of the Aleutian system.
In 1741 the Russian government sent out Vitus Bering, a
Dane, and Alexei Chirikov, a Russian, in the ships ``Saint
Peter'' and ``Saint Paul'' on a voyage of discovery in
the Northern Pacific. After the ships were separated by a
storm, Chirikov discovered several eastern islands of the
Aleutian group, and Bering discovered several of the western
islands, finally being wrecked and losing his life on the
island of the Commander group that now bears his name.
The survivors of Bering's party reached Kamchatka in a boat
constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported
that the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals. Siberian
fur hunters at once flocked to the Commander Islands and
gradually moved eastward across the Aleutian Islands to the
mainland. In this manner Russia gained a foothold on the
north-western coast of North America. The Aleutian Islands
consequently belonged to Russia, until that country in 1867
transferred to the United States all its possessions in
America. During his third and last voyage, in 1778, Captain
James Cook surveyed the eastern portion of the Aleutian
archipelago, accurately determined the position of some of
the more important islands and corrected many errors of former
navigators. Some preliminary surveys have been made by the United
States government with a view to establishing a naval station
on the island Kiska, in the western part of the Aleutian Chain.
ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG) (1857-1893), first
prince of Bulgaria, was the second son of Prince Alexander
of Hesse and the Rhine by his morganatic marriage with
Julia, countess von Hauke. The title of princess of
Battenberg, derived from an old residence of the grand-dukes
of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or
``Serene Highness,'' on the countess and her descendants in
1858. Prince Alexander, who was born on the 5th of April
1857, was nephew of the tsar Alexander II., who had married
a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter
of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the
tsaritsa. In his boyhood and early youth he was frequently
at St Petersburg, and he accompanied his uncle, who was
much attached to him, during the Bulgarian campaign of
1877. When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted
an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the
tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate
for the newly created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected
prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye
(April 29, 1879). He was at that time serving as a lieutenant
in the Prussian life-guards at Potsdam. Before proceeding
to Bulgaria, Prince Alexander paid visits to the tsar at
Livadia, to the courts of the great powers and to the sultan;
he was then conveyed on a Russian warship to Varna, and after
taking the oath to the new constitution at Tirnova (July
8, 1879) he repaired to Sofia, being everywhere greeted with
immense enthusiasm by the people. (For the political history
of Prince Alexander's reign, see BULGARIA.) Without any
previous training in the art of government, the young prince
from the outset found himself confronted with difficulties
which would have tried the sagacity of an experienced ruler.
On the one hand he was exposed to numberless humiliations on
the part of the representatives of official Russia, who made
it clear to him that he was expected to play the part of a
roi faineant; on the other he was compelled to make terms
with the Bulgarian politicians, who, intoxicated with newly won
liberty, prosecuted their quarrels with a crude violence which
threatened to subvert his authority and to plunge the nation in
anarchy. After attempting to govern under these conditions
for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the tsar
Alexander III., assumed absolute power (May 9, 1881), and a
suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period
of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly
(July 13). The experiment, however, proved unsuccessful; the
Bulgarian Liberal and Radical politicians were infuriated, and
the real power fell into the hands of two Russian generals,
Sobolev and Kaulbars, who had been specially despatched from St
Petersburg. The prince, after vainly endeavouring to obtain
the recall of the generals, restored the constitution with the
concurrence of all the Bulgarian political parties (September
18, 1883). A serious breach with Russia followed, which was
widened by the part which the prince subsequently played in
encouraging the national aspirations of the Bulgarians. The
revolution of Philippopolis (September 18, 1885), which brought
about the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, was carried
out with his consent, and he at once assumed the government of
the revolted province. In the anxious year which followed, the
prince gave evidence of considerable military and diplomatic
ability. He rallied the Bulgarian army, now deprived of
its Russian officers, to resist the Servian invasion, and
after a brilliant victory at Slivnitza (November 19) pursued
King Milan into Servian territory as far as Pirot, which he
captured (November 27). Although Servia was protected from the
consequences of defeat by the intervention of Austria, Prince
