SECTION YIII. 



APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE AUTHOR'S DAILY FIELD NOTES, TOGETHER 

 WITH OTHER MEMORANDA ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PRECEDING SEC- 

 TIONS, I TO VIII, INCLUSIVE. 



I give in extenso the foHowing field notes, because each one belongs 

 to a particular i3lace, clay, and date for every sealing season that is to 

 follow this one just ended, 1890. These notes in hand on the islands 

 during the coming years, will aid the officers of the Government up 

 there to observe and contrast the condition of the rookeries and hauling 

 grounds as it shall change for better or worse hereafter. 



For convenience and easy reference, I divide my notes into three sub- 

 divisions, i. e,, "Eookery notes," " Hauling-ground notes," and "Notes 

 on the driving and killing," together with a following of general mem- 

 oranda. 



BOOKEBY NOTES— ST. PA UL ISLAND, 1890. 

 THE REEF AND GAE.BOTCH. 



Thursday, May 22, 1890. — Spent the day in taking a fresh set of 

 angles over this fine area of breeding ground. The sand has drifted 

 very slightly from its boundaries on Zoltoi duriug the last eighteen 

 years: but a large field of basaltic rocks has been uncovered by the 

 holluschickie just wearing away the grassy covering, which opens the 

 sand to the full play of the wind, and away it goes, down to the rocky 

 foundations. The Eeef Point from Gull Hill down to the extreme 

 southwestern "drop" of Garbotch, is a solid lava table, with bubbles of 

 hot eruption at later intervals, all pushed up from the sea. Then from 

 Old John Eock down to the slopes of Parade Pinnacle is a thick super- 

 stratum of volcanic cinders, all reddish and fine, polished and smoothed 

 by 1872, into that remarkable parade ground which I have platted care- 

 fully as it lies. Below Fox Cliff, strewn froDi the beginning of the Eeef 

 rookery, is a surface profusion of basaltic bowlders, all knee and waist 

 high, as a rule, though many of them are nearly sunken. This covering 

 is characteristic of the entire Eeef rookery and of Garbotch as far down 

 as the intersection of the first point of rocks on that ridge southwest. 

 But that northern slope of Garbotch is as smooth as a floor; a hard, 

 cinder pavement that slopes down gently, yet rapidly, with its broad 

 expanse to the sea. It looks as though it might have been graded by 

 the hand of man. In the bight of this rookery and in the rocks awash 

 at its point, 25 or 50 hair seals, Phoca vituHna, were basking, lulled 

 into a sense of security by the hauling fur-seal bulls. 



The whole of the Eeef Point, south of Grassy Summit and Fox Cliff, 

 was entirely bare of grass or any vegetation except lichens on rocks 

 inaccessible to fur seals, and tufts of grass only grew on the points and 

 cliff edges of the west shore. Tufts of grass and a few flowers appeared 

 also over the " second drop." It looks to-day as though much vegeta- 

 tion had crept in and over this field since then, but it is too early now 

 to fairly observe it. 

 454 



