330 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



first work. It consists of two great plateaus, with a high upland valley between, the western 

 table-land dropping abruptly to the sea at Dalnoi Mees, while the eastern falls as precipitately at 

 Waterfall Head and Tolstoi Mees. There are several little reservoirs of fresh water I can scarcely 

 call them lakes on this island; pools, rather, that the wet sphagnum seems to always keep full, 

 and from which drinking-water in abundance is every where found. At Garden Cove a small stream, 

 the only one on the Pribylov Group, empties into the sea. 



Saint George has an area of about 27 square miles; it has 29 miles of coast-line, of which only 

 2J are visited by the fur-seals, and which is in fact all the eligible landing grouud afforded them 

 by the structure of the island. Nearly half of the shore of Saint Paul is a sandy beach, while on 

 Saint George there is less than a mile of it all put together, namely, a few hundred yards in front 

 of the village, the same extent on the Garden Cove beach, southeast side, and less than half a mile 

 at Zapadnie on the south side. 



Just above the Garden Cove, under the overhanging bluffs, several thousand sea-lions hold 

 exclusive, though shy, possession. Here there is a half mile of good landing. On the north shore 

 of the island, 3 miles west from the village, a grand bluff wall, of basalt and tufa intercalated, rises 

 abruptly from the sea to a sheer height of 920 feet at its reach of greatest elevation, thence, drop- 

 ping a little, runs clear around the island to Zapadnie, a distance of nearly 10 miles, without 

 affording a single passage-way up or down to the sea that thunders at its base. Upon its innu- 

 merable narrow shelf-margins, and in its countless chinks and crannies, and back therefrom over 

 the extended area of lava-shingled inland ridges and terraces, millions upon millions of water-fowl 

 breed during the summer months. 



The general elevation of Saint George, though in itself not great, has, however, an average 

 three times higher than that of Saint Paul, the elevation of which is quite low, and slopes gentjy 

 down to the sea east and north; Saint George rises abruptly, with exceptional spots for landing. 

 The loftiest summit on Saint George, the top of the hill right back to the southward of the village, 

 is 930 feet, and is called by the natives Ahluckeyak. That on Saint Paul, as I have before said, 

 is Boga Slov Hill, 600 feet. All elevations on either island, 15 or 20 feet above sea-level, are 

 rough and hummocky, with the exception of the sand-dune tracts at Saint Paul and the summits 

 of the Cinder Hills, on both islands. Weathered out or washed from the basalt and pockets of 

 oliviue on both islands are aggregates of augite, seen most abundant on the summit slopes of 

 Ahlnckeyak Hill, Saint George. Specimens from the stratified bauds of old, friable, gray lavas, so 

 conspicuous on the shore of this latter island, show the existence of hornblende and vitreous feld- 

 spar in considerable quantity, while on the south shore, near the Garden cove, is a large dike of 

 a bluish and greenish-gray phonolith, in which numerous small crystals of spinal are found. A 

 dike, with well-defined walls of old, close grained, clay-colored lava, is near the village of Saint 

 George, about a quarter of a mile east from the landing, in the face of those reddish breccia bluffs 

 that rise from the sea. It is the only example of the kind on the islands. The bases or founda- 

 tions of the Pribylov islands are, all of them, basaltic ; some are compact and grayish-white, but 

 most of them exceedingly porous and ferruginous. Upon this solid floor are many hills of brown 

 and red tufa, cinder-heaps, &c. Polaviua Sopka, the second point in elevation on Saint Paul 

 Island, is almost entirely built up of red scoria and breccia ; so is Ahluckeyak Hill, on Saint George, 

 and the cap to the high bluffs opposite. The village hill at Saint Paul, Cone Hill, the Einah- 

 nuhto Peaks, Crater Hill, North Hill, and Little Polavina are all ash-heaps of this character. The 

 bluffs at the shore of Polavina Point, Saint Paul, show in a striking manner a section of the geo- 

 logical structure of the island. The tufas on both islands, at the surface, decompose and weather 

 into the base of good soil, which the severe climate, however, renders useless to the husbandman. 



