40 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



characteristic Russian crosses and faded pictures of the saints, is plainly- 

 marked on tbe ridfte. It was at this little bight of saudy landing that 

 Pribilov's men first came ashore and took possession of tlie island, while 

 some others, in the same season proceeded to JSTortheast Point, and to tbe 

 north shore to establish settlements of their own order. When the 

 indiscriminate sealing of 1868 was in progress, one of the parties lived 

 here, and a salt house, which was then erected by tbem, still stands. It 

 is in a very fair state of preservation, although it has never been since 

 occupied, except by the natives who come over bere from tbe village in 

 the summer to pick the berries of tbe Empetrum and Rubus, which 

 abound in tbe greatest profusion around the rough and rocky fiats that 

 environ the little lake adjacent. The young people of St. Paul are very 

 fond of this berry festival, so called among themselves, and they stay 

 here every August, camping out a week or ten days at a time, before 

 returning to their homes in tbe village 



Zapadnie rookery has, the two wings included, 5,8S0 feet of sea 

 margin, with an average depth of 150 feet, making ground for 441,000 

 breeding seals and their young, being tbe second rookery on the island 

 as to size and importance. 



Tbe holluscbickie that sport here on the parade plateau, and indeed 

 over all of tbe western extent of the English Bay hauling grounds, 

 have never been visited by tbe natives for the purpose of selecting 

 killing drives since 1872, inasmuch as more seals than were wanted 

 have always been procured from Zoltoi, Lukannon, and Lower Tolstoi 

 l^oints, which are all very close to tbe village. 1 have been told, since 

 making this survey, that during tbe i)ast year the breeding seals of 

 Zapadnie have overflowed, so as to occupy all of the sand strip which 

 is vacant between tbem on the accompanying map. 



ZAPADNIE ROOKERY (1890). 

 [7/8 condition and appearance July, 1S90.] 



It is impossible to convey that full sense of utter desolation which 

 the vacant seal area of 1872 (m this fine rookery aroused in my mind 

 last July, while then making my survey of it. Grass and flowers 

 springing up over those broad areas back of tbe breeding grounds here, 

 where in 1872-1874, thousands upon thousands of young male seals 

 hauled out and over, throughout the entire season, and were undisturbed 

 by any man, not even visited by any one except myself ! No one then 

 even thought of such a thing as coming over from the village to make 

 a killing at Zapadnie, there being more seals than wanted then close 

 by at Tolstoi, Lukannon, and Zoltoi sands. This not alone, but that 

 splendid, once clean-swept expanse of hauling ground in English Bay 

 between the Zapadnies and Tolstoi, is all e/ross gron-n io day except 

 over its areas of drifting sand, with mosses, lichens, and flowers inter- 

 spersed! It is entirely bare of seals save a lonely po<l under Middle 

 Hill. 



Lower Zapadnie is certainly tbe roughest surfaced breeding ground 

 peculiar to tbe seal islands: and it is a curious place on Avliich to view 

 the seals as they h)cate themselves, for as you walk along they sud- 

 denly appear and disappear as they lay in those (]ueer little valleys and 

 canyons here, which have been formed by lava bubbles of tbe geolog- 

 ical time of tbe elevation of St. I'aul Lsland from the sea. But to-day, 

 so scant is tbe massing of tbe breeding seals here, that that unbroken 

 uj)roar which boomed out from tbem in 1872 is wholly absent; it is 



