348 COSMOS. 



which are the largest of all, Unimak, Unalaschka, and Ura- 

 nak — the Andrejanowsk Isles, of which the most famous 

 are Atcha, with three smoking. volcanoes, and the great vol- 

 cano of Tanaga, already delineated by Sauer — the Eat Isl- 

 ands, and the somewhat distant islands of Blynia, among 

 which, as has been already observed, Attn forms the connect- 

 ing link to the Commander group (Copper and Behring's Isles), 

 near Asia. There seems no ground for the often-repeated 

 conjecture that the range of continental volcanoes in the di- 

 rection of N.N.E. and S.S.W., on the peninsula of Kamts- 

 chatka, first commences where the volcanic fissure of up- 

 heaval in the Aleutian Islands intersects the peninsula be- 

 neath the ocean, the Aleutian fissure thus forming, as it were, 

 a channel of conduction. According to Admiral Liitke's 

 chart of the Kamtschatkan Sea (Behring's Sea), the island of 

 Attn, the western extremity of the Aleutian range, lies in 

 lat. 52° 46^, and the non-volcanic Copper and Behring's Isl- 

 ands in lat. 54° 30^ to 55° 20^, while the volcanic range of 

 KamtBchatka commences under the parallel of 56° 40^ with 

 the great volcano of Schivvelutsch, to the west of Cape Stol- 

 bowoy. Besides, the direction of the fissures of eruption is 

 very diflferent, indeed, almost opposite. The highest of the 

 Aleutian volcanoes, on Unimak, is 8076 feet according to 

 Lutke. Near the northern extremity of Umnak, in the month 

 of May, 1796, there arose from the sea, under very remark- 

 able circumstances, which have been admirably described 

 in Otto von Kotzebue's ^' Entdeckungsreise''' (bd. ii., s. 106), 

 the island of Agaschagokh (or St. Johannes Theologus), 

 which continued burning for nearly eight years. According 

 to a report published by Krusenstern, this island was, in the 

 year 1819, nearly sixteen geographical miles in circumfer- 

 ence, and was nearly 2240 feet high. On the island of Una- 

 laschka the proportions of the trachyte, containing much 

 hornblende, of the volcano of Matuschkin (5474 feet) to the 

 black porphyry (l|yind the neighboring granite, as given by 

 Chamisso, would^reserve to be investigated by some scientific 

 observer acquainted with the conditions of modern geology, 

 and able to examine carefully the mineralogical character of 

 the different kinds of rocks. Of the two contiguous islands 

 of the Pribytow group, which lie isolated in the Kamtschat' 

 kan Sea, that of St. Paul is entirely volcanic, abounding in 

 lava and pumice, while St. Geoi*ge's Island, on the contrary, 

 contains only granite and gneiss. 



According to th^most exact enumeration we yet possess, 



