38 REPORT ON INTRODUCTION OP 



number of needle rocks clustering around its base, while a few miles 

 beyond, as outlying sentinels, are the Sea Lion Rocks. At tlie northern 

 entrance of the harbor are large, detached, precipitous rocks at the 

 base of high, perpendicular rock cliffs, cliffs and r^cks alike being cov- 

 ered with nesting birds. In a sheltered nook on the north side of the 

 harbor is the village, with a population of 159. 



Returning to the ship, at 6.25 p. in. we were under way for Sand 

 Point. Steaming up Popoff Straits and passing a small settlement at 

 Squaw Harbor, we rounded Sand Point, and at 8.25 p. m. anchored in 

 Humboldt Harbor, off the village of Sand Point. This village consists 

 of a half dozen houses belonging to Lind & Hough, of San Francisco, 

 and a United States custom-house. A small hotel is in process of erec- 

 tion. At anchor in the harbor were the British sealers Venture and 

 San Jose and Walter L. Rich, all of Victoria, British Columbia, and 

 the American schooners Czarina and Venture. The sealers had large 

 crews of British Columbia Indians, and were awaiting the end of the 

 closed season to engage in sealing. This is the central depot of the 

 North Pacific cod fishing, the Czarina being at the dock loading codfish 

 for San Francisco. At the wharf, and forming the foundation of a por- 

 tion of the same, was the hull of the schooner John Hancock, wrecked at 

 the Sand Point Wharf. The John Hancock was built as a naval steamer 

 at the Charlestown (Massachusetts) Navy- Yard in 1850-1852, and was in 

 Commodore Perry's Japan expedition in 1853-54, after which it was 

 condemned and sold into the merchant service. While in the merchant 

 service and loaded with lumber it was abandoned at sea, off the coast 

 of Oregon. Being recovered and brought into port, it was resold to 

 Lind & Hough, who placed it in their codfish trade in the Shumagin 

 Islands, where it has left its bones in the harbor of Sand Point. 



June 8, at 2.10 a. m., the Bear got under way. Passing out from the 

 north end of Popoff Straits, we skirted the north end of Unga Island, 

 through Unga Straits, and passed the entrance of Portage and Beaver 

 bays down past Seal Cape. About 6 a. m. we passed a small settle- 

 ment of Aleuts on Wosnesewsky Island. The Alaska Commercial 

 Company, who have had a small trading station at this village, have 

 this season closed it. 



Passing to the north of Ukolsnoy Island, almost directly ahead was 

 the celebrated Pavloff Volcano, smoking with its old-time fidelity. 

 Pavloff and Canoe bays, on the Pacific Ocean side, extend inland across 

 the peninsula to within 4 miles of the waters of Herendeen Bay and 

 Port Moller, on the Bering Sea side. In several places the peninsula is 

 nearly cut in two by the fiords that extend nearly across from the 

 Pacific Ocean to Bering Sea. 



Turning southward, we soon entered the narrow straits between Dolgoi 

 and Goloi islands and the Belkofsky peninsula and Inner Iliasik Island, 

 then through Iliasik Pass, after which we hauled up for Belkofsky, sit- 

 uated upon the bluffs directly in front of us, coming to anchor abreast 



