THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 15 



every step when you pass over long reaches of rocky shingle at low tide. A few of the larger Fiisus are found, 

 and the live and dead shells of Limacina are in great abundance wherever the floating kelp-beds afford them shelter. 



On land a very large number of shells of the genera Succinea and Pupa abound all over the islands; on the 

 bluffs of St. George just over Garden cove I gathered a beautiful Hcli.r. 



The little fresh-water lakes and ponds contain a great quantity of representatives of the characteristic genera 

 Planorbis, Melania, Limnea, and that pretty little bivalve, the Cyclas, 



Of the Crustacea, the Annelidas, and Echinodermata, there is abundant representation here. The sea-urchins, 

 "repkie" of the natives, are eagerly sought for at low tide and eaten raw by them. The Arctic sea-clam, Mya 

 truncata, is once in a long time found here (it is the chief food of the walrus of Alaska), and the species of Mytilns, 

 the mussels, so abundant in the Aleutian archipelago, are almost absent here at St. Paul, and only sparingly 

 found at St. George. 



The waters fairly swarm with an enormous number and variety of Medusa; or jelly-fishes. 



The sea- weeds are exceedingly varied and abundant here, great heaps of their assorted fronds are tossed up by 

 every gale to rot upon the beaches. 



Dimensions and contour op the islands. — Until my arrival on the seal islands in April, 1872, no steps 

 had ever been taken by any man whomsoever toward ascertaining the extent and the real importance of these 

 interests of the government; the Russians never having made eveu an approximate survey of the land, while our 

 own people did no better. I was very much surprised, immediately after landing, and calling for a map of the 

 island of St. Paul, to have an odd sketch, traced from an old Russian chart, placed before me, that my eye stamped 

 instantly as grotesque, by the laud-bearings which I took out of my window on the spot. It was a matter of no 

 special concern, however, to the Russians; had it been, doubtless they would have accurately surveyed the whole 

 field. But it was and is quite different with us ; and, that no agent of the Treasury Department, or other branches 

 of the government, had, up to the date of my arrival, given it the slightest thought or attention, struck me as 

 rather strange. It was, as it is, and ever will be, a matter of first importance to a correct and succinct understanding of 

 the subject, and it was the first thing about which I busied myself. I present, therefore, with this memoir, a careful 

 chart of each island and the contiguous islets, which are the first surveys ever made upon the ground having the 

 slightest pretension to accuracy.* The reader will observe, as he turns to these maps, the striking dissimilarity 

 which exists between them, not only in contour but in physical structure, the island of St. Paul being the 

 largest in superficial area, and receiving a vast majority of the Pinnipedia that belong to both. As it lies in Bering 

 sea to-day, this island is in its greatest length, between northeast and southwest points, 13 miles, air line; and a 

 little less than G at points of greatest width. It has a superficial area of about 33 square miles, or 21,120 acres, of 

 diversified, rough, and rocky uplands, rugged hills, and smooth, volcanic cones, which either set down boldly to 

 the sea or fade out into extensive wet and mossy flats, passing at the sea-margins into dry, drifting, sand-dune 

 tracts. It has 42 miles of shore line, and of this coast, 16A miles are hauled over by fur-seals en masse. At the 

 time of its first upheaval above the sea, it doubtless presented the appearance of ten or twelve small rocky, bluffy 

 islets and points, upon some of which were craters that vomited breccia and cinders, with little or no lava overflowing. 

 Active plutonic agency must have soon ceased after this elevation, and then the sea around about commenced the 

 work which it is now engaged in: of building on to the skeleton thus created; and it has progressed to-day so 

 thoroughly and successfully in its labor of sand-shifting, together with the aid of ice-floes, in their action of grinding, 

 lifting, and shoving, that nearly all of these scattered islets within the present area of the island, and marked by 

 its bluffs and higher uplands, are completely bound together by ropes of sand, changed into euduriug bars and 

 ridges of water-worn bowlders. These are raised .above the highest tides by winds that whirl the sand up, over, 

 and on them, as it drives out from the wash of the surf and from the interstices of the rocks, lifted up and pushed 

 by ice-fields. 



Land and scenery. — The sand which plays so important a part in the formation of the island of St. Paul, and which 

 is almost entirely wanting in and around the others in this Pribylov group, is principally composed of Foraminifera, 

 together with Diatomacca, mixed in with a volcanic base of fine comminuted black and reddish lavas and old friable 

 gray slates. It constitutes the chief beauty of the sea-shore here, for it changes color like a chameleon, as it passes 

 from wet to dry, being a rich steely-black at the surf-margin and then drying out to a soft purplish-brown and gray, 

 succeeding to tints most delicate of reddish and pale neutral, when warmed by the sun and drifting up on to the 

 higher ground with the wind. The sand-dune tracts on this island are really attractive in the summer, especially 

 so during those rare days when the sun comes forth — the unwonted light skimmers over them and the most 

 luxuriant grass and variety of beautiful flowers, which exist in profusion thereon. In past time, as these sand 

 and bowlder bars were forming on St. Paul island, they, in making across from islet to islet, inclosed small bodies 

 of sea-water. These have, by evaporation and time, by the flooding of rains and annual melting of snow, become, 

 nearly every one of them, fresh; they are all, great and small, well shown on my map, which locates quite a large 

 area of pure water. In them, as I have hinted, are no reptiles ; but an exquisite species of tiny viviparous fish 



* These surveys have since been confirmed ami elaborated by II. W. Mclntyre, <>f tuo A. C. Co., and Lieut. Washburn Maynard, I'. s. X. 



