Bering Sea, the enclosed basin, the proximity of the American continent,
the island stepping-stones between, and the lure of rich sealskins to
the fur-hunting Cossacks determined a sudden maritime expansion, for
which the Russian people were unfitted. Beginning in 1747, it swept the
coast of Alaska, located its American administrative center first on
Kadiak, then on Baranof Island, and by 1812 placed its southern outposts
on the California coast near San Francisco Bay and on the Farralone
Islands.[31] Russian convicts were employed to man the crazy boats built
of green lumber on the shores of Bering Sea, and Aleutian hunters with
their _bidarkas_ were impressed to catch the seal.[32] The movement was
productive only of countless shipwrecks, many seal skins, and an
opportunity to satisfy an old grudge against England. The territory
gained was sold to the United States in 1867. This is the one instance
in Russian history of any attempt at maritime expansion, and also of any
withdrawal from territory to which the Muscovite power had once
established its claim. This fact alone would indicate that only
excessively tempting geographic conditions led the Russians into an
economic and political venture which neither the previously developed
aptitudes of the people nor the conditions of population and historical
development on the Siberian seaboard were able to sustain.

[Sidenote: The larger conception of the environment.]

The history and culture of a people embody the effects of previous
habitats and of their final environment; but this means something more
than local geographic conditions. It involves influences emanating from
far beyond the borders. No country, no continent, no sea, mountain or
river is restricted to itself in the influence which it either exercises
or receives. The history of Austria cannot be understood merely from
Austrian ground. Austrian territory is part of the Mediterranean