THE FUR SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 327 



located as to command the best landings for vessels that can be made during the. prevalence of 

 any ami all winds, except those from the south. From these there is no shelter for ships, unless 

 they run around to the north side, where they are unable to hold practicable communication with 

 the people or to discharge. At Saint George matters are still worse, for the prevailing northerly, 

 westerly, and easterly winds drive the boats away from the village roadstead; and weeks often 

 pass at either island, but more frequently at the latter, ere a cargo is landed at its destination. 

 Under the very best circumstances, it is both hazardous and trying to load and unload ship at any 

 of these places. The approach to Saint Paul by water during thick weather is doubtful and 

 dangerous, for the land is mostly low at the coast, and the fogs hang so dense and heavy over and 

 around the hills as to completely obliterate their presence from vision. The captain fairly feels 

 his way in, by throwing his lead-line and straining his ear to catch the muffled roar of the seal- 

 rookeries, which are easily detected when once understood, high above the booming of the surf. 

 At Saint George, however, the bold, abrupt, bluffy coast every where all around, with its circling 

 girdle of flying water-birds far out to sea, looms up quite prominently, even in the fog; or, in other 

 words, the navigator can notice it before he is hard aground or struggling to haul to windward from 

 the breakers under his lee. Th^re are no reefs making out from Saint George worthy of notice, but 

 there are several very dangerous and extended ones peculiar to Saint Paul, which Capt. John G. 

 Baker, in command of the vessel* under my direction, carefully sounded out, and which I have 

 placed upon my chart for the guidance of those who may sail in my wake hereafter. 



When the wind blows from the north, northwest, and west to southwest, the company's steamer 

 drops her anchor in 8 fathoms of water abreast of the black bluffs opposite the village, from which 

 anchorage her stores are lightered ashore; but in the northeasterly, easterly, and southeasterly 

 winds, she hauls around to the Lagoon Bay west of the village, and there, little less than half a 

 mile from the landing, she drops her anchor in 9 fathoms of water, and makes considerable head- 

 way at discharging the cargo. Sailing craft come to both anchorages, but, however, keep still 

 farther out, though they choose relatively the same positions, but seek deeper water to swing to 

 their cables in ; the holding-ground is excellent. At Saint George the steamer comes, wind permit- 

 ting, directly to the village on the north shore, close in, and finds her anchorage at 10 fathoms of 

 water, over poor holding-ground; but it is only when three or four days have passed free from 

 northerly, westerly, or easterly winds, that she can make the first attempt to safely unload. The 

 landing here is a very bad one, surf breaking most all the year around. 



OTTER ISLAND. The observer will notice that 6 miles to the southward and westward of the 

 reef of Saint Paul's Island is a bluffy islet, called by the Russians Otter Island, because in olden 

 time the Proinishlyniks are said to have captured many thousands of sea-otters on its rocky coast. 

 It rises from the ocean, sheer and bold, an unbroken mural precipice of sea front, extending nearly 

 all around, but dropping on its northern margin, at the water, low, and slightly elevated above 

 the surf-wash, with a broken, rocky beach and no sand. The height of the bluffs, at their greatest 

 elevation over the west end, is 300 feet, while the eastern extremity is quite low, and terminated 

 by a queer funnel-shaped crater bill, which is as distinctly denned, and as plainly scorched, and 

 devoid of the slightest sign of vegetation within, as though it had burned up and out yesterday. 

 This crater point on Otter Island is the only unique feature of the place, for with the exception of 

 this low north shore, before mentioned, where a few thousand of "bachelor" seals haul out during 

 the season every year, there is nothing else worthy of notice concerning it. A bad reef makes 



* United States revenue-marine cutter Reliance, June to October, 1874. Captain Baker was and is one of the 

 most thorough-going seamen that it has ever been my good fortune to bo associated with. His work can be absolutely 

 relied upon. 



