342 HISTOET AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



pet sealing ground with them. The remains of the old village have nearly all been buried in the 

 sand near the lake, and there is really no mark of its early habitation, unless it be the singular 

 effect of a human graveyard being dug out and despoiled by the attrition of seal bodies and 

 flippers. The old cemetery just above and to the right of the barrabkie, near the little lake, was 

 originally established, so the natives told me, far away from the hauling of the " hollnscuickie." 

 It was, when I saw it in 1876, in a melancholy state of ruin a thousand young seals at least moved 

 off from its suface as I came up, and they had actually trampled out many sandy graves, rolling the 

 bones and skulls ot Aleutian ancestry in every direction. Beyond this old barrabkie, which the 

 present natives established as a house of refuge during the winter when they were trapping foxes, 

 looking to the west over the lake, is a large expanse of low, flat swale and tundra, which is ter- 

 minated by the rocky ridge of Kaminista ; every foot of it has been placed there subsequent to the 

 original elevation of the island by the action of the sea, beyond all question. It is covered with a 

 thick growth of the rankest sphagnum, which quakes and trembles like a bog under one's feet, but 

 over which the most beatiful mosses ever and anon crop out, including the characteristic floral 

 display before referred to in speaking of the island ; most of the way from the village up to North- 

 east Point, as will be seen by a cursory glance at the map, with the exception of this bluft' of Pola- 

 vina and the terraced table setting back from its face to Polavina Sopka, the whole island is 

 slightly elevated above the level of the sea, and its coast line is lying just above and beyond the 

 reach of the surf, where great ridges of sand have been piled up by the wind, capped with sheafs 

 and tufts of rank-growing Elymus. 



There is a small rookery, which I call " Little Polavina" indicated here, that does not promise 

 much for the future ; the sand cuts it off on the north, and sand has blown around so at its rear 

 as to make all other ground not now occupied by the breeding seals there quite ineligible. Polavina 

 rookery has 4,000 feet of sea margin, including Little Polavina, with 150 feet of average depth, 

 making ground for 300,000 breeding seals and their young. 



NORTHEAST POINT OR NOVASTOSHNAH ROOKERY. Though this is the last of the Saint Paul 

 rookeries which I notice, yet it is so much greater than any other one on the island, or two others 

 for that matter, that it forms the central feature of Saint Paul, and in truth presents a most aston- 

 ishing and extraordinary sight. It was a view of such multitudes of amphibians, when I first stood 

 upon the summit of Hutchiuson Hill, and looked at the immense spread around me, that suggested 

 to my mind a doubt whether the accurate investigation which I was making would give me 

 courage to maintain the truth in regard to the subject. 



The result of my first survey here presented such a startling array of superficial area massed 

 over by the breeding seals, that I was fairly disconcerted at the magnitude of the result. It 

 troubled me so when my initial plottings were made, and I had worked them out so as to place them 

 tangibly before me, that I laid the whole preliminary survey aside, and seizing upon the next favor- 

 able day went over the entire field again. The two plats then, laid side by side, substantially agreed, 

 and I now present the great rookery to the public. It is in itself, as the others are, endowed with 

 its own particular physiognomy, having an extensive sweep, everywhere surrounded by the sea, 

 except at that intersection of the narrow neck of sand which joins it to the main land. Hutchinson 

 Hill is the foundation of the point, a solid basaltic floor, upon which a mass of breccia has been 

 poured at its northwest corner, which is so rough, and yet polished so highly by the countless 

 pattering flippers of its visitors as to leave it entirely bare and bald of every spear of grass or 

 trace of cryptogamic life. The hill is about 120 feet high ; it has a rounded summit flecked entirely 

 over by the "holluschickie," while the great belt of breeding rookery sweeps high up on its flanks, 

 and around right and left, for nearly 3 miles unbroken, an amazing sight in its aggregate, and 

 infinite in its detail. 



