Appendix. 41 



heard in general terms, and from several sources, that many of 

 the passes between the Aleutian Islands, formerly safe, have now 

 shoaled so much as to have become dangerous. Ball, in his Re- 

 sources of Alaska, states that Isanotski, marked as a navigable 

 though dangerous pass between Unimak Island and Aliaska Pe- 

 ninsula by French surveyors, is now a cul-de-sac. 



Ball also gives the following facts : On St. Michael's Island, 

 in Norton Sound, and on the neck between Norton and Kotzebue 

 Sounds, lie great winrows of drift wood, similar to those thrown 

 up to-day, but far beyond the reach of the water at its present 

 level. On St. Michael's Island also are some basaltic rocks, full 

 of amygdaloid cavities. The upper portion of the rocks is fully 15 

 feet above the level of high water, and some grass grows on it. 

 Yet in its cavities, in situ, can be found fragments of species of 

 barnacle, which must have lived there when the rock was cov- 

 ered daily by the tide. 



Areas of local upheaval and depression occur in Southern 

 Alaska quite frequently, but they, of course, have but little bear- 

 ing on the general question. A few years before our residence 

 there, a part of the site of the village of Illiuliuk, on Unalaska 

 Island, was lowered until covered by water, and a part of the 

 bay's bottom was brought to the surface. This occurred during 

 a severe earthquake. Ball quotes Captain Riedell to the effect 

 that a part of the south harbor of Unga Island, one of the Shu- 

 magin group, shoaled from 4 fathoms to 4 feet during an earth- 

 quake shock in May, 1868. It is well known that Bogosloff 

 Island, to the west of Unalaska, appeared above the surface with 

 much fire, smoke, tremblings of the earth and other disturbances 

 between May i and May 14, 1796. At this time, stones were 

 thrown to Umnak, a distance of about twenty-five miles. Eight 

 years after, when the island was visited, the sea was still hot 

 around it. Ball records the sinking of a low point in Chalmer's 

 Bay, Prince William's Sound. The stumps of the trees formerly 

 covering the point are now beneath the level of the lowest tides. 

 This is an isolated fact, and the phenomenon seems entirely local. 



The northern shore of Alaska has the characteristics of a 

 land just rising from the sea. It is generally level and slopes 



