56 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



base, and is covered with the iufluite detail of massed seals in reproduction : at first sight, one wonders how they 

 got there. No passages whatever can be seen, down or up. A further survey, however, discloses the common 

 occurrence of rainwater runs between sui'f-beaten crevices, which make many stairways for the adhesive feet of 

 Callorhinus amply safe and comfortable. 



For the reason cited in a similar example at Zapaduie, no "holluschictie" have been driven from this point since 

 1872, though it is one of the easiest worked. It was in the Russian times a pet sealing-grouud with them. 

 The remains of the old village have nearly all been buried in the sand near the lake, and there is really no maik of 

 its early habitation, unless it be the singular effect of a human grave-yard being dug out and despoiled by the 

 attrition of seal bodies and Hippers. The old cemetery just above and to the right of the barrabkie, near the 

 little lake, was oiigiually established, so the natives told me, far away from the hauling of the "holluschickie"; 

 it was, when I saw it in 1S70, in a melancholy state of ruiu — a thoiisaufl young seals at least moved off from 

 its surface as I came up, and they had actually trampled out many sandy graves, rolling the bones and skulls of 

 Aleutian ancestry in every direction. Beyond this old barrabkie, which the present natives established as a house of 

 refuge during the winter whea they were trapping foxes, looking to the west over the lake, is a large expanse of low, 

 flat swale and tundra, which is terminated by the rocky ridge of Kaminista; every foot of it has been placed there 

 subsequent to the original elevation of the island by the action of the sea, beyond all question. It is covered with 

 a thick growth of the rankest sphagnum, which quakes and trembles like a bog under one's feet, but over which 

 the most beautiful mosses ever and anon crop out, including the characteristic floral display before referred to 

 in speaking of the island ; most of the way from the village nj) to Xortheast jioint, as will be seen by a cursory' 

 glance at the map, with the exception of this bluff of Polaviua and the terraced table setting back from its face to 

 Polavina Sopka, the whole island is slightly elevated above the level of the sea, and its coastline is lying just 

 abo\e and beyontl the reach of the surf, where great ledges of sand have been piled up by the wind, capped with 

 sheafs and tufts of rank-growing EUjmus. 



There is a small rookery, which I call "Little Polavina", indicated here, which does not promise ranch for the 

 future ; the sand cuts it off on the north, and sand has blown around so at its rear, as to make all other ground not 

 now occupied by the breeding- seals there quite ineligible. Polavina rookery has 4,000 feet of sea-margin, including 

 Little Polavina, with 150 feet of average depth, making ground for 300,000 breeding-seals and their young. 



Northeast point or Novastoshnah rookery. — Though this is the last of the St. Paul rookeries which I 

 notice, yet it is so much greater than any other one on the island, or two others for that matter, that it forms the 

 central feature of St. Paul, and in truth presents a most astonishing and extraordinarj- sight. It was a view of 

 such multitudes of amphibians, when I first stood upon the summit of Hutchinson hill, and looked at the immense 

 si)read around me, that suggested to my mind a doubt whether the accurate investigation which I was making- 

 would give me courage to maintain the truth in regard to the subject. 



The result of my first survey here presented such a startling array of superficial area massed over by 

 the breeding-seals, that I was fairly disconcerted at the magnitude of the result. It troubled me so when my 

 initial plottings were made, and I had worked them out so as to i)lace them tangibly before me, that I laid the whole 

 ineliminary survey aside, and seizing upon the next favorable day went over the entire field again. The two plats 

 then, laid side by side, substantially agreed, and I now present the great rookery to the imblic. It is in itself, as the 

 others are, endowed with its own particular physiognomy, having an extensive sweep, everywhere surrounded by 

 the sea, excei)t at that intersection of the narrow neck of sand which joins it to the main island. Hutchinson hill 

 is the foundation of the point — a solid basaltic floor, upon which a mass of breccia has been poured at its northwest 

 corner, which is so rough, and yet polished so highly by the countless pattering flippers of its visitors, as to leave 

 it entirely bare and bald of every spear of grass or trace of cry])togamic life. The hill is about 120 feet high ; it 

 has a rounded summit flecked entirely over by the "holluschickie", while the great belt of breeding-rookery sweeps 

 high up on its flanks, and around right and left, for nearly three and a half miles unbroken — an amazing sight 

 in its aggregate, and infinite in its detail. 



The picturesque feature, also, of the rookery here, is the appearance of the tawny, yellowish bodies of several 

 thousand sea-lions, which lay in and among the fur-seals at the several points designated on the sketch-map, though 

 never far from the water. Sea-Lion neck, a little tongue of low basaltic jutting, is the principal corner where the 

 natives take these animals from when they capture them in the fall for their hides and sinews.* 



Cross, or St. John's, hill, which rises near the lake, to a height of CO or 70 feet, and is quite a landmark itself, 

 is a perfect cone of sand entirely covered with a luxuriant growth of Ehjmits ; it is growing constantly higher by 

 the fresh deposit brought by wind, and its retention by the aunually rising grasses. 



At this point, it will be noticed, there is a salt-house, and here is the killing-ground for Northeast point, where 

 nineteen of twenty thousand "holluschickie" are disposed of for their skins every season ; their carcasses being si)read 

 out on the sand-dunes between the foot of Cross hill and Webster's house; a squad of sealers live there during the 



*The sea-lions breed on no one of the other roolceries .at this island, the insignificant nnnilier that I noticed on Seevitchio Kannnis 

 excepted. At Soulhwest point, however, I found a small sen-lion rookery, hnt there are no breeding fnr-seals there. A haudl'ul of 

 Eumctopias used to breed on Otter island, but do not now, since it has been necessary to station government agents there, for the 

 apprehension of fur-seal pirates, during the sealing season. 



