WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS. 217 



ists in the lagoon-estuarv near the village, and the small pure-water 

 lakes of the nativas just under the flanks of Telegraph Hill. The 

 Aleutes assured me that they had caught fish in the big lake to- 

 ward Northeast Point, when they lived in their old village out there ; 

 but, I never succeeded in getting a single specimen. The waters of 

 these pools and ponds are fairly alive with vast numbers of minute 

 Rotifera, which sport about in all of them wherever they are exam- 

 ined. Mam' species of water-plants, pond-lilies, algae, etc., are 

 found in those inland waters, especially in that large lake " Mee- 

 sulk-mah-nee," which is very shallow. 



The backbone of St. Paul, running directly east and west, 

 from shore to shore, between Polavina Point and Einahnuhto Hills, 

 constitutes the high land of that island : Polavina Sopka, an old 

 extinct cinder-crater, five hundred and fifty feet ; Bogaslov, an 

 upheaved mass of splinted lava, six hundred feet ; and the hills 

 frowning over the blufis there, on the west shore, are also six hun- 

 dred feet in elevation above the sea. But the average height of the 

 upland between is not much over one hundred to one hundred and 

 fifty feet above water-level, rising here and there into little hills and 

 broad, rocky ridges, which are minutely sketched upon the map. 

 From the northern base of Polavina Sopka a long stretch of low 

 sand-flats extends, enclosing the great lake, and ending in a narrow 

 neck where it unites with Novastoshnah, or Northeast Point. Here 

 that volcanic nodiile known as Hutchinson's Hill, with its low, 

 gradual sloj^es, trending to the east and southward, makes a rocky 

 foundation secure and broad, upon which the great single rookery 

 of the island, the greatest in the world, undoubtedly, is located. 

 The natives say that when they first came to these islands Novas- 

 toshna was an island by itself, to which they went in boats from 

 Vesolia Mista ; and the lagoon now so tightly enclosed was then 

 an open harbor in which the shijDS of the old Russian Company 

 rode safely at anchor. To-day, no vessel drawing ten feet of water 

 can safely get nearer than half a mile of the village, or a mile from 

 this lagoon at low tide. 



The total absence of a harbor at the Pribylov Islands is much 

 to be regretted. The village of St. Paul, as will be seen by refer- 

 ence to the map, is so located as to command the best landings for 

 vessels that can be made during the prevalence of any and all 

 winds, except those from the south. From these there is no shelter 

 for ships, unless they run around to the north side, where they are 



