THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 45 



The two "summer" villages in which the natives spend the few months ot the 

 sealing season are located on the east side, opposite the corresponding rookeries. 

 The first one from the main village is Karabelni, openly situated among the low sand- 

 dunes (pi. 34n). All the houses of th(; luitives are small and poorly built huts, many of 

 them being yurts or mud-huts. The salt-house and the government's house are tlic 

 most imposing structures. Occasionally some of the families stay here until Christ 

 mas, or even the whole wintei% but the Aleuts are too social a people to statul for any 

 length of time such isolation for the sake of thrift or economy. The southern village 

 is (Hinka, picturesijuely built on the slojje of the steep coast escarpment (i)ls. Mh ami 

 3.")); otherwise its general features are like tiiose of Karabelni. 



SEAL ROOKERIES. 



The character of the Copper Island seal rookeries, owing to the precipitous nature 

 of its coast .and the narrowness of its beaches,' is very different from those on Bering 

 Island. There is one (juite notable similarity, however, viz, that nom^ are situated on 

 tlie eastern shore of the islands in spite of the fact that this side offers plenty of reefy 

 and rocky places which might api)arcntly answer all requirements. There are no 

 records, to my knowledge, which would indicate that seals ever hauled up ou the 

 eastern beaches, and there is no reason to believe that they did. 



There are two distinct rookeries ou the west side of Copper Island, or, possibly 

 W(; should say, groups of rookeries. However, while at the present day the various 

 liauling or breeding grounds of each group iire distinct and separate enough, they are 

 manifestly only sections of the larger assemblage and are therefore most naturally 

 and conveniently treated as such. These two main rookeries, named Karabelni and 

 Glinka, corresponding to the summer villages of the same name situated opposite, on 

 the cast shore, are located in the southeastern half of the island, about ii miles a^iart. 



KARABELNOYE ROOKEKY. 



The northernmost of the two main rookeries is Karabelni (Karahelnoyc Iczhbish- 

 tche) located south of the village of like name and easily recognized by a very charac- 

 teristic isolated rock, Karabelni Stolp, which rises a hundred feet perpendicularly out 

 of the water at the western extremity of the rookery (pi. 38). 



The"Stolp"is connected with the main beach by a low, flat, gravelly neck, tlie 

 western portion of which is rocky and covei'ed with water-worn bowlders. 



The main coast itself is formed by a series of nearly perpendicular bluffs, the rocky 

 sides of which rise above a narrow beach from 200 to 300 feet, and the only way to 

 observe this rookery is from some exposed points on the top of these bluff's. From 

 their projecting angles, in most cases, long rocky reefs run out into the sea, between 

 which small coves with a narrow gravelly beach otter shelter for the breeding seals and 

 their young. The bays thus included commence at a projecting bluff", between which 

 and the sea there is no passage by high water, situated just west of the "Stolp," the 

 first one between these two points being called Martishina Bnkhta. Next, on the east 



' So steep are the rocky walls behind the ('opper Island rookeries and so close do the se.als lie to 

 them that falling masses of earth and rocks have nccasioiially caused the death of many of the animals. 

 Thns it is recorded (Otchet Ross. Amcrik. Komp. za 181!l,"p. 23) that on the IGth of Octolier, 181!), 

 diirin;; an earthquake, a rocky wall fell down burying a rookery on Copper Island. Another earth- 

 slide ou cue of the Glinka rookeries in 1893 similarly resulted in the killing of many seals. 



