50 FUK-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



at a time, a marine impossibility to effect a laiidiug- at Zapaduie suita- 

 ble for the safe transit of cargo to the steamer. 



This 5 miles of the roughest of all rougli walks that can be imagined 

 is made by the fur seals in about fourteen to sixteen hours when driven 

 by the Aleuts and the weather is cool and foggy. I have known one 

 Treasury agent who, after making the trip from the village to Zapadnie, 

 seated himself down in the barrabkie there and declared that no money 

 would induce him to walk back the same way that day, so severe is the 

 exercise to one not accustomed to it; but it exhibits the power of land 

 locomotion possessed by the holUischickie.' 



ZAPADNIE ROOKERY (1890). 



[Its condilion and appearance JnJy, 1S74.] 



The St. George Zapadnie was a very small edition of the St. Paul 

 Zapadnie in' 1872. It is still a small rookery, but rehitively has held its 

 own much better than its big namesake during the last seventeen years. 

 I often wondered in 1873, why this little rookery way over here, and all 

 by itself on the soutli shore, should be the mark of the best hauling of 

 the holluschickie on St. George Island. I now believe that its location 

 is the cause, since the scent and noise of the breeding seals must 

 appeal strongly to the upward-bound bands of holluschickie, as they 

 come en route from the Aleutian passes for St. Paul Island. The south 

 shore of St. George would be the first land met by them, lience the 

 largest and best drives on St. George can always be made here, although 

 the rookery itself is, and always has been, one of the smallest. 



Yet, it is the finest lay of seal landing for a breednig ground on the 

 island, since the i)olished. Hat basaltic shelves and cubes that are its 

 chief topographical characteristics could easily receive ten times as many 

 seals as I found there in 1873, or to-day, July L*(), 1800. But, for some 

 reason or other, the eligible rookery ground here has never been occu- 

 l^ied beyond the beach belt or sea margin. The area in the rear is a 

 superb rocky slope, nearly flat, but well drained. It never had been 

 occu])ied prior to 1872-73 in so far as I can trace the record, and cer- 

 tainly has not been since. 



Upon the accompanying map of this rookery I have also added the 

 hauling grounds, which are all confined to this single spot on the south 

 shore of St. George. There are none on the east shore, and there is no 

 west shore to speak of, owing to the i)eculiar shape of this island. 

 Each rookery map belonging to St. George must carry also the hauling 

 grounds adjacent and contiguous, since these seal fields over here are 

 on too small a scale to be shown clearly by a general map of this island 

 unless drawn on a vastly larger scale than that which can be success- 

 fully employed for St. Paul Islaiul. 



'The peculiarly rougli character to this trail is oiven hy the large, loose, sharp- 

 edged basaltic bowlders which are strewu thickly over all tbose lower plateaus that 

 bridge the island between the bluffs at Starry Arteel and tlie slopes of Ahluckeyak Hill. 

 The summits of the two broader, higher plateaus east and west, respectively, are com- 

 paratively smooth and easy to travel over; and so is the sea level Hat at Zapadnie 

 itself. On the map of St. tieorge a number of very small ponds will be noticed; 

 they are the fresh-water reservoirs of the island. The two largest of these are near 

 the summit of this rough divide. The seal trail from Zapaduie to the village runs 

 just west of them and comes out on the north shore a little to the eastward of the 

 hauling grounds of Starry Arteel, where it ibrks and unites with that path. The 

 direct line between the village and Zapaduie, though nearly a mile shorter on the 

 chart, is eqiial to 5 miles more of distance by reason of its superlative rocky 

 inequalities. 



