HABITS OF ALASKAN SEAL. 



THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



CLIMATE. 



Page 90 of The Case. 



Fogs are almost constant in Bering Sea in the summer time During 

 the fifty-eight clays I cruised in those waters fifty- 

 four days were foggy or rainy, the other four days c. A. Alley, p. 186. 

 being partly clear. On this account it is most 

 difficult to seize vessels in Bering Sea. The reports of the guns of the 

 hunters might often be heard when no vessel could be seen. 



For fifteen or twenty days at a time I did not see the sun, and never 

 while in Bering Sea did I see a star, the night being continually over- 

 cast or foggy. Our position was in nearly all cases determined by dead- 

 reckoning or bearing of the land. 



The meteorologic conditions in these latitudes are such that fogs and 

 mists hang so continuously over the land and water 

 as to make navigation very uncertain and danger- j, Stanley Brown, p. 11. 

 ous. So all-enveloping are these vapors, that it is 



often impossible to see the shore a quarter of a mile distant, and so 

 fickle are the fogs and mists that I ascended Bogaslov, the central cone 

 of the island of St. Paul, five times before I could catch a glimpse of 

 the hills immediately surrounding it, and this, too, when each occasion 

 was selected for its promise of clearness. The temperature of the 

 warm season averages about 45° or 50°, and, though no trees grow 

 upon the islands, the excessive humidity is so favorable for grasses, 

 flowers, and other herbage, that they grow with a rapidity and flourish 

 with a luxuriance difficult to realize and unknown in the north tem- 

 perate zone. 



All these regions are particularly favorable for seal life; the raw, 

 damp atmosphere, absence of sunshine, and un- 

 inhabited conditions being most advantageous to , J . as - w - Budmgton, p. 591 

 the existence of the species. All these regions *■ " arc lc) ' 

 described are uninhabited, excepting the Falkland Islands and Terra 

 del Fuego, the latter being inhabited by the Indians, who only visit a 

 few of the inshore rookeries. 



In all of these localities the sky is constantly overcast; the sun never 

 shines for more than an hour or two at a time, and 



around the more southern islands fogs are very J as - w -B' ldl,l 9 to »,P- 5 ^ 

 prevalent. The temperature is always cold and <(/c 

 damp, being about 40° F. during the summer. 



77 



