186 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



amonc; them two live pups. Even those we had to kill, after in vain 

 having tried to make them take food. One of them will be brought 

 home in alcohol for anatomical investigation. 



Character oy Bering Island. — That part of Bering Island which 

 we saw is composed of a plateau resting on volcanic mountains/ which 

 in many places is broken by deep canyons. In their bottoms are 

 usually found lakes, which through smaller or larger streams connect 

 with the sea. 



The border of the lakes and the mountain slopes are covered with 

 a rich vegetation of long grass and beautiful flowers, among which a 

 sword lil}^ that is cultivated in our gardens, the useful dark-red brown 

 Savannah lily, several orchids, two kinds of rhododendrons, large 

 flowers, umbellifers the height of a man, sunflowers like synanthaus, 

 etc. An entirely different kind of flora prevailed on the islet which 

 lies outside the harbor. 



Toi)orkoff Islet consists of an eruptive rock, which everywhere 

 toward tlie shores, a few score yards from high-water mark, rises up 

 in the form of abrupt, low, cracked walls from 5 to 10 meters in height, 

 differing in different places. Above those abrupt mountain walls the 

 surface of the island is formed of an even plane. What lies below 

 forms a gradually slojjing beach. The gradually sloping beach con- 

 sists of two well defined belts, an outer one without any vegetation, 

 an inner one overgrown with Aramadenia peploides, Eiymus mollis, 

 and two kinds of umbellates, Heracleum sihiricum and Angelica arch- 

 angelica, of which the two last named form an almost impenetrable 

 brush about 50 meters wide, man high, along the shelf. The abrupt 

 mountain walls are in some places yellow colored from the Ccdoplacmus 

 muronnn and C. cr&mulata, in other places quite closely clothed with 

 Cochlear ia fenestrata. 



The uppermost even plateau is covered by a luxuriant close grass 

 carpet, over which a few stalks of the two above-named umbellates 

 raise themselves here and there. Vegetation on this little islet com- 

 bines an unusual poverty of various species with a high degree of 

 luxuriance. 



Of higher order of animals we saw only four species of birds, namely, 

 Fratercidacirrhata, Uria gnjlle, one species of Phalacrocorax (Swedish 

 skafvar), and one kind of the gull {Larus) species, which live here by 

 the millions. They occupied the upper plateau, where they had every- 

 where dug out short, deep, and unusually broad passages, with two 

 openings, in which thej' slept. From there they flew, on our arrival, 

 in large flocks to and from the sea. Their numbers were almost com- 

 parable with the auks on the arctic bird cliffs. The other dlicks 

 nestled along the shore cliffs. 



The number of the nonvertebrate land animals foots up perhaps to 

 thirty species. The most numerous are Machelis, Vitrina, Lithobias, 

 Talitrus, a few two-winged beetles (bugs). They all lived on the inner 

 belt of the shore, where the ground is unusually damp. 



Much milder climate than that of the Pribilof group. — 

 Bering Island could without difficulty feed large herds of cattle, per- 

 haps as numerous as the herds of sea cows which formerly grazed along 

 its shores. The sea cow had, as it were, chosen its grazing place with 



'According to Mr. Grebnitsky, tertiary petrifactions and seams of coal are found 

 on Bering, the former north of the colony in the interior of the island, the latter 

 at the water's edge south of Bering's grave. Also, near the colony, the underlayer 

 below trachyte beds is composed of immense sand layers. 



