WONDERFUL SEAL LSLANDS. 199 



pie : be advanced what lie considered a very jolausible theory 

 for the cause of the aurora ; he cited an ancient sage, who be- 

 lieved that the change of winds threw the saline particles of the 

 sea high into the air, and then by aerial friction, " fermentation" 

 took place, and the light was evolved ! I am sure that the saline 

 particles of Bering Sea were whirled into the air during the whole 

 of that winter of my residence there, but no "fermentation" oc- 

 curred, evidently, since rarely indeed did the aurora greet my eyes. 

 In the summer season there is considerable lightning ; you will see 

 it streak its zigzag path mornings, evenings, and even noondays, but 

 from the dark clouds and their swelling masses upon Avliich it is 

 portrayed no sound returns — afulmen brutum, in fact. I remember 

 hearing but one clap of thunder while in that country. If I recol- 

 lect aright, and my Russian served me Avell, one of the old natives 

 told me that it was no mystery, this light of the aurora, for, said he, 

 " we all believe that there are fire-mountains away up toward the 

 north, and what we see comes from their burning throats, mirrored 

 back on the heavens." 



The formation of these islands, St. Paul and St. George, was 

 recent, geologically speaking, and directly due to volcanic agency, 

 which lifted them abruptly, though gradually, from the sea-bed. 

 Little spouting craters then actively poured out cinders and other 

 volcanic breccia upon the table-bed of basalt, depositing below as 

 well as above the water's level as they rose ; and subsequently fin- 

 ishing their work of construction through the agency of these 

 sj)out-holes or craters, from which water-puddled ashes and tufa 

 were thrown. Soon after the elevation and deposit of the igneous 

 matter, all active volcanic action must have ceased, though a few 

 half-smothered outbursts seem to have occurred very recently in- 

 deed, for on Bobrovia or Otter Island, six miles southward of St. 

 Paul, is the fresh, clearly blown-out throat, with the fire-scorched 

 and smoked, smooth, sharp-cut, funnel-like walls of a crater. This 

 is the only place on the Seal Islands where there are any e^ddences 

 of recent discharges from the crater of a volcano. 



Since the period of the upheaval of the group under discussion, 

 the sea has done much to modify and even enlarge the most impoi-- 

 tant one, St. Paul, while the others, St. George and Otter, being- 

 lifted abruptly above the power of water and ice to carry and 

 deposit sand, soil, and boulders, are but little changed from the 

 condition of their first appearance. 



