ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 21 



wanting in and aronnd the others in this Pribilof gronp, is principally 

 composed of Forann'nifera, together with Diafoiuacea, mixed in with 

 a volcanic base of fine comminuted black and reddish lavas and old 

 friable gray slates. It constitutes the chief beauty of the seashore 

 here, for it changes color like a chameleon as it passes from wet to 

 dry, being a rich, steely black at the surf margin and then drjang out 

 to a soft purplish brown and graj^ succeeding to tints most delicate 

 of reddish and pale neutral, when warmed by the sun and drifting up 

 on to the higher ground with the wind. The sand-dune tracts on this 

 island are really attractive in the summer, especially so during those 

 rare days when the sun comes forth — the unwonted light .shimmers 

 over them and the most luxuriant grass and variety of beautiful flow- 

 ers, which exist in profusion thereon. In past time, as these sand and 

 bowlder bars were forming on St. Paul Island, they, in making across 

 from islet to islet, inclosed small bodies of sea water. These have, by 

 evajjoration and time, by the flooding of rains and annual melting of 

 snow, become, nearly every one of them, fresh. They are all, great and 

 small, well shown on my map, which locates quite a large area of pure 

 water. In them, as I have liinted, are no reptiles; but an exquisite 

 species of tiny viviparous fish exists in the lagoon estuary near the 

 village and the small pure-water lakes of the natives just under the 

 flanks of Telegraph Ilill. The Aleuts assured me that they had caught 

 fish in the great lake toward Northeast Point when they lived in their 

 old village out there, but I never succeeded in getting a single speci- 

 men. Tlie waters of these pools and i>onds are fairly alive with vast 

 numbers of minute Bolifera, which sport about in all of them when, 

 ever they are examined. Many species of water plants, ]3ond lilies- 

 algfB, etc. , are found in the inland waters, especially in the large lake 

 Mee-sulk-mah-nee, that is very shallow. 



The backbone of the island, running directh^ east and west, from 

 shore to shore, between Polavina Point and Einahnuhto Hills, con- 

 stitutes the high land of the island. Polavina Sopka, an old extinct 

 cinder crater, 550 feet; Boga Slov, an upheaved mass of splinted 

 lava, 600 feet, and the hills frowning over the bluffs there, on the 

 west shore, are also GOO feet in elevation above the sea; but the 

 average height of the upland between is not much over 100 to 150 

 feet above water level, rising here and there into little hills and broad, 

 rocky ridges, which are minutely sketched upon the map. From the 

 northern base of Polavina Sopka a long stretch of low sand flats 

 extend, inclosing the great lake, and ending in a narrow neck where 

 it unites with Novastoshnah, or Northeast Point. Here the volcanic 

 nodule known as Hutchinsons Hill, with its low, gradual slopes, trend- 

 ing to tlie east and southward, makes a rocky foundation secure and 

 broad, upon which the great single rookery of the island — the greatest 

 in the world, undoubtedlj' — is located. The natives say that when 

 they first came to tliese islands Novastoshnah was an island by itself, 

 to which they went in boats from Vesolia Mista; and the lagoon now 

 so tightly inclosed was then an open harbor, in which the ships of the 

 old Russian companj'- rode safelj^ at anchor. To-day no vessel draw- 

 ing 10 feet of water can get nearer than half a mile of the village, or 

 a mile from this lagoon. 



Lack of harbors: Anchorages. — The total absence of a harbor 

 at the Pribilof Islands is much to be regretted. The village of St. 

 Paul, as will be seen by reference to the map, is so located as to com- 

 mand the best landings for vessels that can be made during the preva- 

 lence of any and all winds, except those from the south. From these 



