ALASKA 65 



I. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLANDS. 



The Prybilov gi'oupof fur-seal islands occupy tbe most iso- 

 lated poitiou of any land in Bering- Sea, the three nearest land- 

 l)oints to them being nearly equidistant; Saint Matthew's 

 jind Xunivok Islands, Cape isewenh;im, on the mainland, and 

 Ounalashka Island, all about one hundred and eighty miles off; 

 and in this location ocean-currents from the great Pacific, to 

 the southward, warmer than the normal temperature of their 

 latitude, ebb and flow around them on their way to the Arctic 

 and elsewhere, and give rise in this way during the summer 

 months and early autumn to constant thick, humid fogs and 

 drizzling mists which hang in heavy banks over the islands 

 and sea, seldom breaking away to indicate a pleasant day. 



By the middle or end of October, high, cold winds carry off 

 the moisture and clear up the air, and by the end of January 

 or early in February, usually bring down from the north and 

 northwest great fields of broken ice, not very heavy or thick, 

 but still covering the whole surface of the sea, shutting in the 

 land completely, and hushing the wonted roar of the surf for 

 a month or six weeks at a time. In exceptionally cold seasons, 

 for three and even four months the coast will be ice-bound; and 

 winters, on the other hand, occur, like the last one, (1873-'74,) 

 in which not even the sight of an ice-floe was recorded, and 

 there was very little skating on the little lakes, but this is not 

 often the case. The breaking up of winter-weather usually 

 commences about the first week in April, the ice beginning to 

 leave or dissolve at that time or a little later, so that by the 

 1st or the oth of May generally, the beaches and rocky sea- 

 margins are clear and free from ice and snow ; although snow 

 occasionally lies in gullies and leeward hill-slopes, where it has 

 drifted during the winter, until the end of July and middle of 

 August. Fog, damp, thick, and heavy, closes in about the end 

 of May, and this, the usual sign of summer, holds on steadily 

 until the middle or end of October. 



The periods of change are exceedingly irregular in autumn 

 and spring, but in summer the uniformity of the weather, with 

 cool, moist, shady, gray ibg, is constant, and to this certainty 

 of favorable climate, coupled with the perfect isolation and ex- 

 ceeding fitness of tne ground, is due, without doubt, the prefer- 

 ence for it manifested by the warm-blooded animals which 

 come here every year, to the practical exclusion of all other 

 ground, in thousands and hundreds of thousands, to breed. 

 5 AL 



