Kamchatka

in addition to whitefish, and stores of dried fish "onkolo" form their own and their dogs' winter food. In the Gulf of Anadir, pike, grayling, dorse and malma are fished and exported to Japan and Vladivostok, in addition to the supply for local needs. Gold mines were working at Volshaya until 1907 and the gravels con tained 240 grains of ore per ton. The region is rich in coniferous forests, and coal exists, but distance and climate prevent ex ploitation at present, though plans are being considered. There is no telegraph and only two steamers visit the Anadir per annum. There is a wireless station in 64° 34' N. and 175° 35' E.

The native tribes are Chukchi, Lamuts, Yukaghir and Chu vanzi. The Yukaghir and Chuvanzi are branches of a Palaeo Siberian race, short, dark-haired, dark-eyed, yellow to brown in skin colour and have hairless faces; their eyes are not Mongolian in type. They are rapidly dying out, partly through drink and syphilis and partly through the limitation of their hunting of the wild reindeer by the increasing activities of the Chukchi. Markovo, at the centre of winter routes to Gizhiga, Kolima river, Chukchi peninsula and Novo-Mariinsk, is the chief settlement. There are a few horses, long-haired cows and pigs, but fishing is the chief occupation. There is a wireless station here, and at Novo-Mariinsk.

The country along the Pacific coast between the Polpol moun tains and the Kerek villages to the south is altogether unknown and uninhabited. Dr. Bogoras crossed it in 1900. Mineral wealth reported from the Kamchatka province, in addition to that men tioned previously, includes lignite coal in Gizhiga and Penzhina bays and at Baron Korfa gulf, wolfram near Klyuchevskaya, and iron, copper, iridium, palladium and osmium.

History.

In 1648 the Cossack Dezhnev, after whom East cape has been re-named Dezhnev, sailed round the Arctic coast and south to Anadir gulf, thus discovering Bering strait 8o years before Bering re-discovered it. Other Cossacks crossed from the Kolima river by land along the Anyui and over the watershed and joined him in the Anadir region. But quarrels ensued and Dezhnev remained a wanderer in the region until his disappearance about In 1696 Vladimir Atlasov penetrated from the Anadir to Cape Lopatka, and established a fort at Verkhni-Kamchatka. His suc cessors Kobelev and Zinovev further extended the Russian dis coveries and a settlement was made at Nijni-Kamchatka. The natives burned the settlements and drove the Russians from the country in 1706, but Atlasov, who had been imprisoned, was released and returned to Kamchatka in 1707 and restored the Russian forts. The authorities at Yakutsk sent out expeditions in 1714 to find a shorter route to Kamchatka than that via Anadir and discovered the Aldan-Maya-Okhotsk route ; this opened up quicker communication and ensured Russian rule in Kam chatka.

In 172o a survey of the peninsula was undertaken; Bering's expedition visited it in 1725-30 and Krasheninnikov and Steller in From 176o Kamchatka was governed by a naval officer from Okhotsk. In 1799 the Russian-American trading firm began to develop the district, and in 1803 it became a sep arate province. Nijni-Kamchatka was the first administrative centre, Bolsheretsk succeeded it for a time, but in 185o Petro pavlovsk, with its fine harbour, became the centre of the Russian Pacific naval squadron.

In 1855 the French and English were defeated in an attack on the town, and in 186o the squadron was transferred to Nikolai evsk and in 1872 to Vladivostok. Attempts at colonization, in cluding the settlement of Cossacks from the Lena, were made during the period before the acquisition of the Amur region. They were not successful, and with the loss of the strategic importance of Kamchatka, the attempts were discontinued. Trading activities are reviving and the increased communications by sea will prob ably result in further development. The population of the whole province was estimated at 32,000 in 1926.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-(In

Russian) V. A. Obruchev, in Izvestia of the East Siberian Geographical Society (xxiii., 4, 5 ; 1892) ; P. Semenov, Zhivop. Rocciya, t. 12, ii., 1895 ; A. Silnitsky, Travels, 1902 ; V. N. Tyushov, On the Western Shores of Kamchatka, 1906; G. A. Erman, Reise um die Erde, iii. (5848) ; C. von Ditmar, Reisen and Aufenthalt in Kamchatka in den Jahren 1851-1855 (1890-1900) ; K. Diener, in Petermann's Mitteilungen (1891, vol. xxxvii.) ; G. Kennan, Tent Life in Siberia (187o), and paper in Jour. of American Geog. Soc. (1876) ; F. H. H. Guillemard, Cruise of the "Marchesa" (1889) ; and G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton in Scott. Geog. Mag. (May 1899), with bibliog raphy; F. A. Golder, Russ. Expans. on Pacific (1641-185o) (1914) ; Sten. Bergman, Through Kamchatka by Dog-Sled and Skis (1927) ; W. Bogoras, The Chukchee, Memoir of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. VII. ; W. Bogoras, Am. Anth. IV. (1902) ; W. I. Jochelson, Memoirs of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. 6, 1905-1908, Vol. 9 (Iwo). (R. M. F.) KAME (a form of Scandinavian comb, hill), a more or less rounded hill or short ridge of sand and gravel which occurs associated with glacial deposits. Kames frequently occur in the outwash plain of a glacier and at the mouths of en-glacial streams and are formed by the deposition of the sediments carried by these streams. Kames are often situated directly behind a terminal moraine. They are common in the glaciated portions of the lower Scottish valleys. (See GLACIER.)