THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK. 125 



lofty ridges ; on Oonga the most elevated summits are to be seen. 

 Bare of timber, but covered with sphagnum and mosses and 

 clumps of dwarfed crab-apples and willows, they stand as rock- 

 ribbed break-waters against the full sweep of the mighty uninter- 

 rupted roll of a vast ocean. The surf that dashes foaming and 

 booming upon their firm foundations is of unrivalled force, and 

 fear-inspiring. 



Oonga Island has also been the base of a very extended and 

 thorough attempt to develop a large vein of coal which is found 

 cropping out on the face of a bluff in a small inlet of its north 

 shore. The oldest coal-mine in the region of Alaska is located in 

 Cook's Inlet near its mouth, at a spot still indicated on maps as 

 Coal Harbor. Here the Russians, eager to be able to obtain fuel 

 for the use of their steam-vessels, began, in 1852, a most active and 

 systematic series of mining operations ; they brought machinery 

 and ran it by steam-power ; experienced German miners were 

 engaged to superintend and direct a large force of Muscovitic 

 laborers sent up from Sitka. In 1857 the work had been so ener- 

 getically pushed that shafts had been sunk, and a drift run into 

 the vein for a distance of one thousand seven hundred feet ; during 

 this period, and three following years, two thousand seven hundred 

 tons of coal were mined, the value of which was forty-six thou- 

 sand rubles, but the result was a net loss. The thickness of the 

 vein was found to vary from nine to twelve feet, and its extent 

 was practically unlimited. But the Russians found out then, as 

 our people at Oonga did afterward, that this Alaskan lignite was 

 utterly unfit for use in the furnaces of the steamers that it was so 

 highly charged with sulphur as to burn like a flash and eat out, 

 fuse and warp the grate-bars even melting down the smoke- 

 stacks! Steam-vessels now bring their own coal with them from 

 San Francisco, Puget Sound or Nanaimo, or have it sent up from 

 there by sailing-tenders to depots previously designated.* 



As we leave the sheltering bluffs of Oonga, our course seems to 



* Captain F. W. Beechey in his voyage of the Blossom, 1825-27, discov- 

 ered and located at Cape Beaufort, in the Arctic Ocean and on the Alaskan 

 coast, a vein of coal ; this has been subsequently revisited and mined to a 

 small extent by the officers of the Revenue marine cutters of our Government, 

 who pronounce it very satisfactory for steaming purposes. Its situation, how- 

 ever, is so remote that it has no economic significance, and no harbor is there 

 for a vessel of any kind. 



