THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 11 



Clouds. — Speaking of the stormy weather brings to my mind the beautiful, varied, and impressive nephelogical 

 displ; y in the heavens overhead here during October and November. I may say, without exaggeration, that the 

 cloud effects which I have witnessed from the bluffs of this little island, in those seasons of the year, surpass anything 

 that I had ever seen before. Perhaps the mighty masses of cumuli, deriving their origin from warm exhalations out 

 of the sea, and swelled and whirled with such rapidity, in spite of their appearance of solidity, across the horizon, 

 owe their striking brilliancy of color and prismatic tones to that low declination of the sun due to the latitude. 

 Whatever the cause may be, and this is not the place to discuss it, certainly no other spot on earth can boast of a 

 more striking and brilliant cloud display. In the season of 1865-06, when I was encamped on this same parallel of 

 latitude in the mountains eastward of Sitka and the interior, I was particularly attracted by the exceeding 

 brilliancy, persistency, and activity of the aurora; but here on St. Paul, though I eagerly looked for its dancing 

 light, it seldom appeared; and when it did, it was a sad disappointment, the exhibition always being insignificant 

 when compared in my mind with that flashing of my previous experience. A quaint old writer,* a hundred 

 years ago, when describing Norway and its people, called attention to what he considered a very plausible theory as 

 to the cause of the aurora; he cited an ancient sage, who believed that the change of the winds threw the saline 

 particles of the sea high into the air, and then, by aerial friction, "fermentation" took place, and the light was 

 evolved! I am sure that the saline particles of Bering sea were whirled into the air during the whole of that winter 

 of my residence there, but no "fermentation" occurred, evidently, for rarely indeed did the aurora greet my eyes. In 

 the summer season there is considerable lightning; you will see it streak its zigzag path mornings, evenings, and 

 even noondays, but from the dark clouds and their swelling masses upon which it is portrayed no sound returns; 

 afulgur brutum, in fact. I remember hearing but one clap of thunder while in that country. If I recollect aright, 

 and my Russian served me well, one of the old natives told me that it was no mystery, this light of the aurora, 

 for, said he, "we all believe that there are fire-mountains away up toward the north, and what we see comes from 

 their burning throats, mirrored back on the heavens". 



Geological structure. — The formation of these islands, St. Paul and St. George, was recent, geologically 

 speaking, and directly due to volcanic agency, which lifted them abruptly, though gradually, from the sea-bed. 

 Little spouting craters then actively poured out cinders and other volcanic breccia upon the table-bed of basalt, 

 depositing below as well as above the water's level as they rose ; and subsequently finishing their work of 

 construction through the agency of these spout-holes or craters, from which water-puddled ashes and tufa were 

 thrown. Soon after the elevation and deposit of the igneous matter, all active volcanic action must have ceased, 

 though a few half-smothered outbursts seem to have occurred very recently indeed ; for on Bobrovia or Otter island, 

 six miles southward of St. Paul, is the fresh, clearly blown-out throat, with the fire-scorched and smoked, smooth, 

 sharp-cut, funnel-like walls of a crater. This is the only place on the seal-islands where there are any evidences of 

 recent discharges from the crater of a volcano. 



Since the period of the upheaval of the group under discussion, the sea has done much to modify and even 

 enlarge the most important one, St. Paul, while the others, St. George and Otter, being lifted abruptly above the 

 power of water and ice to carry and deposit sand, soil, and bowlders, are but little changed from the condition of 

 their first appearance. 



Vegetation. — The Russians tell a rather strange story in connection with Pribylov's landing. They say that 

 both the islands were at first without vegetation!, save St. Paul, where there was a small "talneek", or willow, 

 creeping along on the ground ; and that on St. George nothing grew, not even grass, except on the place where the 

 carcasses of dead animals rotted. Then, in the course of time, both islands became covered with grass, a great part 

 of it being of the sedge kind, Elymus. This record of Veniaminov, however, is scarcely credible; there are few, 

 surely, who will not question the opinion that the seals antedated the vegetation, for, according to his own 

 statements, those creatures were there then in the same immense numbers that we find them to-day. The 

 vegetation on these islands, such as it is, is fresh and luxuriant during the growing season of June and July and 

 early August, but the beauty and economic value of trees and shrubbery, of cereals and vegetables, is denied to 

 them by climatic conditions. Still I am strongly inclined to believe that, should some of those hardy shrubs and 

 spruce trees indigenous at Sitka or Kadiak, be transpl rated properly to any of the southern hill-slopes of St. Paul 

 most favored by soil, drainage, and bluffs for shelter from saline gales, they might grow, though I know that, 

 owing to the lack of sunlight, they would never mature their seed. There is, however, during the summer, a 

 beautiful spread of grasses, of flowering annuals, biennials, and perennials, of gaily-colored lichens aud crinkled 

 niossesf, which have always afforded me great delight whenever I have pressed my way over the moors and up the 

 hillsides of the rookeries. 



There are ten or twelve species of grasses of every variety, from close, curly, compact mats to tall stalks — 

 tussocks of the wild wheat, Elymus arena rid, standing in favorable seasons waist high — the "wheat of the north" — 

 together with over one hundred varieties of annuals, perennials, spagnum, cryptogamic plants, etc., all flourishing 

 in their respective positions, and covering nearly every point of rock, tufa, cement, and sand that a plant can grow 



*Pontoppidau. + Veniaminov: Zapicskie Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, etc.', 1842. 



tThe mosses at Kamminista, St. Paul, are the finest examples of their kind on the islands; they are very perfect aud beautiful in 

 many species. 



