THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 19 



walls of old, close-grained, clay-colored lava, is near the village of St. George, about a quarter of a mile east from the 

 landing, in the face of those reddish breccia bluffs that rise from the sea. It is the only example of the kind on the 

 islands. The bases or foundations of the Pribylov islands are, all of them, basaltic; some are compact and grayish- 

 white, but most of them exceedingly porous and ferruginous. Upon this solid floor are many hills of brown and 

 red tufa, cinder-heaps, etc. Polaviua Sopka, the second point in elevation on St. Paul island, is almost entirely 

 built up of red scoria and breccia; so is Ahluckeyak hill, on St. George, and the cap to the high bluffs opposite. 

 The village hill at St. Paul, Cone hill, the Einahnuhto peaks. Crater hill, North hill, and Little Polaviua are all 

 ash-heaps of this character. The bluffs at the shore of Polavina point, St. Paul, show in a striking manner a 

 section of the geological structure of the island. The tufas on both islands, at the surface, decompose and weather 

 into the base of good soil, which the severe climate, however, renders useless to the husbandman. There is not a 

 trace of a granitic or a gueissic rock found in situ. Metamorphic bowlders have been collected along the beaches 

 and pushed up by the ice-floes which have brought them down from the Siberian coast away to the northwest. 

 The dark-brown tufa bluffs and the breccia walls at. the east landing of St. Paul island, known as " Black blurt's", 

 rise suddenly from the sea GO to 80 feet, with stratified horizontal lines of light-gray calcareous conglomerate, or 

 cement, in which are imbedded sundry fossils characteristic of and belonging to the Tertiary age, such as Gardium 

 grcmlcmdicum, G. decoration, and Astarte pectunculata, etc. This is the only locality within the purview of the 

 Pribylov islands where any paleoutological evidence of their age can be found. Tbese specimens, as indicated, are 

 exceedingly abundant; I brought down a whole series, gathered there at the east landing or "Navastock", in a 

 short half-hour's search and labor. 



Why these islands are frequented by fur-seals. — The fact that the fur-seals frequent these islands and 

 those of Bering and Copper, on the Russian side, to the exclusion of other land, seems at first a little singular, to 

 say the least; but when we come to examine the subject we find that these animals, when they repair hither to rest 

 for two or three months on the land, as they must do by their habit during the breeding-season, they require a cool, 

 moist atmosphere, imperatively coupled with firm, well-drained land, or dry, broken rocks, or shingle rather, upon 

 wbich to take their positions and remain undisturbed by the weather and the sea for the lengthy period of repro- 

 duction. If the rookery-ground is hard and flat, with au admixture of loam or soil, puddles are speedily formed 

 in this climate, where it rains almost every day, and when not raining, rain-fogs take quick succession and continue 

 the saturation, making thus a muddy slime, which very quickly takes the hair off the animals whenever it plasters 

 or wherever it fastens on them; hence, they carefully avoid any such landing. If they occupy a sandy shore the 

 rain beats that material into their large, sensitive eyes, and into their fur, so they are obliged, from simple irrita- 

 tion, to leave and hunt the sea for relief. 



The seal-islands now under discussion offer to the Pinnipedia very remarkable advantages for landing, 

 especially St. Paul, where the ground of basaltic rock and of volcanic tufa or cement slopes up from so many points 

 gradually above the sea, making thereby a perfectly adapted resting-place for any number, from a thousand to 

 millions, of those intelligent animals, which can lie out here from May until October every year in perfect physical 

 peace and security. There is not a rod of ground of this character offered to these animals elsewhere in all Alaska, 

 not on the Aleutian chain, not on the mainland, not on St. Matthew or St. Lawrence. Both of the latter islands were 

 surveyed by myself, with special reference to this query, in 1874; every foot of St. Matthew shore-line was 

 examined, and I know that the fur-seal could not rest on the low clayey lava flats there in contentment a single 

 day; hence he never has rested there, nor will he in the future. As to St. Lawrence, it is so ice-bound and snow- 

 covered in spring and early summer, to say nothing of numerous other physical disadvantages, that it never becomes 

 of the slightest interest to the seals. 



D. THE OCCUPANTS OF THE ISLANDS. 



5. THE NATIVES OF THE ISLANDS. 



Colonization by Russians and Aleuts: Early history. — When Pribylov, in taking possession, landed on 

 St. George a part of his little ship's crew, July, 1786, he knew that, as it was uninhabited, it would be necessary 

 to create a colony there, from which to draft laborers to do the killing, skinning, and curing of the peltries; there- 

 fore he and his associates, and his rivals after him, imported natives of Oonalashka and Atkha — passive, docile 

 Aleuts. They founded their first village a quarter of a mile to the eastward of one of the principal rookeries 

 on St. George, now called "Starry Ateel", or "Old settlement"; a village was also located at Zapadnie, and a suc- 

 cession of barrabaras planted at Garden cove. Then, during the following season, more men were brought up from 

 Atkha and taken over to St. Paul, where five or six rival traders posted themselves on the north shore, near and 

 at "Maroonitch", and at the head of the Big lake, among the sand-dunes there. They were then as they are now, 

 somewhat given tcrriotous living, if they only had the chance, and the ruins of the Big lake settlement are pleasantly 

 remembered by the descendants of those pioneers to-day, on St. Paul, who take off their hats as they pass by, to 



