“But the chiefest value--and this alone is worth more than the pittance asked for it--consists in its extensive cod and halibut fish-grounds. To the eastward of Kadiak, or the Aleutian Islands, are extensive banks, or shoals, nearly, if not quite, equal in extent to those of Newfoundland, and as well stocked with fish. Also west of the Aleutian Islands, which extend from Alaska southwest half-way to Kamtchatka, and inclosing that part of land laid down as Bristol Bay, and west of it, is an extensive area of sea, varying from forty fathoms in depth to twenty, where I have found the supply of codfish and halibut unfailing. These islands furnish good harbors for curing and preparing fish, as well as shelter in storm.” In another letter Mr. Bryant says that the shoals east of the entrance to Cook’s Inlet widen as they extend southward to latitude 50°; and that there are also large shoals south of Prince William Sound, and again off Cross Sound and Sitka. The retired ship-master adds, that he never examined these shoals to ascertain their exact limit, but only incidentally, in the course of his regular business, that he might know when and where to obtain fish, if he wished them. His report goes beyond any chart of soundings I have seen, although, as far as they go, the charts are coincident. Cook particularly notices soundings in Bristol Bay, and in various places along the coast. Other navigators have done the same. Careful surveys have accomplished so much that at this time the bottom of Behring Sea and of Behring Strait, as far as the Frozen Ocean, constituting one immense bank, is completely known in depth and character. Add to all this the official report of Mr. Giddings, acting surveyor-general of Washington Territory, made to the Secretary of the Interior in 1865, where he says:-- “Along the coast, between Cape Flattery and Sitka, in the Russian possessions, both cod and halibut are very plenty, and of a much larger size than those taken at the Cape, or further up the Straits and Sound. No one, who knows these facts, for a moment doubts but that, if vessels similar to those used by the Bank fishermen that sail from Massachusetts and Maine were fitted out here, and were to fish on _the various banks along this coast_, it would even now be a most lucrative business.… The cod and halibut on this coast, up near Sitka, are fully equal to the largest taken in the Eastern waters.”[214] From this concurring evidence, including charts and personal experience, it is easy to see that the first condition of a considerable fishery is not wanting.