[63] Captain F. W. Beechey in his voyage of the _Blossom_, 1825-27, discovered and located at Cape Beaufort, in the Arctic Ocean and on the Alaskan coast, a vein of coal; this has been subsequently revisited and mined to a small extent by the officers of the Revenue marine cutters of our Government, who pronounce it very satisfactory for steaming purposes. Its situation, however, is so remote that it has no economic significance, and no harbor is there for a vessel of any kind. CHAPTER VII. THE QUEST OF THE OTTER. Searching for the Otter.—Exposure and Danger in Hunting Sea-otters.—The Fortitude, Patience, and Skill of the Captor.—Altasov and his Band of Cruel Cossacks.—Feverish Energy of the Early Russian Sea-otter Traders.—Their Shameful Excesses.—Greed for Sea-otter Skins Leads the Russians to Explore the Entire Alaskan Coast, 1760-1780.— Great Numbers of Sea-otters when they were First Discovered in Alaska.—Their Partial Extermination in 1836-40.—More Secured during the Last Five Years than in all the Twenty Years Preceding.—What is an Otter?—A Description of its Strange Life.—Its Single Skin sometimes Worth $500.—The Typical Sea-otter Hunter.—A Description of Him and his Family.—Hunting the Sea-otter the Sole Remunerative Industry of the Aleutians.—Gloomy, Storm-beaten Haunts of the Otter.—Saanak, the Grand Rendezvous of the Hunters.—The “Surround” of the Otter.—“Clubbing” the Otter.—“Netting” the Otter.—“Surf-shooting” Them. Little does my lady think, as she contemplates the rich shimmer of the ebony sea-otter trimming to her new seal-skin sacque, that the quest of the former has engaged thousands of men during the last century in exhaustive deeds of hazardous peril and extreme daring, and does to-day—that the possession of the sea-otter’s coat calls for more venturesome labor and inclement exposure on the part of the hunter than is put forth in the chase of any other fur-bearing or economic animal known to savage or civilized man. No wonder that it is costly; what abundant reason that it should be rare! The rugged, storm-beaten resorts of the sea-otter, its wariness and cunning, and the almost incredible fortitude and patience, skill and bravery, of its semi-civilized captor, have so impressed the writer that he feels constrained to rearrange his notes and touch up his field-sketches made upon the subject-matter of this chapter several years ago, while cruising in Alaskan waters, so that he may give to the readers of this work the first full or fair idea of the topic ever put into type and engraving.