186 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



there to rest from the pelting of storms : then they are speedily 

 apprehended and clubbed by the watchful Oomnak hunter. 



That curious group, the " Cheetiery Sopochnie," or Islands of the 

 Four Mountains, stands right across the straits, opposite Oomnak. 

 From Kaygamilak, which lies nearest, eleven mummies were taken as 

 they were found in a warm cave on the northeast side of this island. 

 These bodies were placed there in 1724, or some twenty-five or 

 thirty years before the Eussians first appeared. The mummies * 

 were in fine preservation, and were the remains of a noted chief 

 and his family, who in that time ruled with an iron hand over a 

 large number of his people. The Island of Kayamil is a mere vol- 

 canic series of fire-chimneys, the walls of which are not yet cool. 

 The southeast shore in olden times was the site of several large 

 settlements, where the people lived well upon an abundance of 

 sea-lions, hair-seals, and water-fowl, which still repair to its bor- 

 ders. Now that it is desolate and uninhabitable, large flocks of 

 tundra geese spend the summers here, as they shed their feathers 

 and rear their young, not a fox to vex or destroy them having 

 been left by those prehistoric Aleutian hunters. 



But on Tahnak, which is the largest of the group, plenty of red 

 foxes are reported. The loftiest summits are also on this one of 

 the four islets, and on the south side once lived a race of the most 

 warlike and ferocious of all Aleutes. They were destroyed to a man 

 by Glottov, and their few descendants have long since been merged 

 with those of Oomnak, where they now live. Several small, high, 

 bluffy islands stand around Tahnak, and between it and its sister, 

 Oonaska, which is nearly as large, equally rugged and precipitous. 

 Amootoyon is a quite small islet, and completes the quartet of 

 " Cheetiery Sopochnie." 



A most interesting volcanic phenomenon of recent record is 

 afforded by the study of that small Bogaslov islet which now stands 

 hot and smoking twenty miles north of Oomnak, and which, two 

 years ago, raised a great commotion by firing up anew. In the 

 autumn of 1796 the natives of Oomnak and Oonalashka were 

 startled by a series of loud reports like parks of artillery, followed 



* These specimens were procured at the urgent request of the author, who 

 induced a trader to make the attempt, September 22, 1874. They were pre- 

 sented by the Alaska Commercial Company of San Francisco to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. 



