CXXKIV 
MeEpno1. 
Mer Be Dee) Os! Ee 
produce in thefe feas. Farther, the effect of the meteoric waters, and of the 
frofts, caufes the rocks very fenfibly to fhiver and fall down, and precipitates 
every year fome great mafs into the fea, and changes the form of the ifland. 
The others are in the fame cafe; fo nothing is more probable than their gradual 
diminution, and, by confequence, the more eafy communication formerly from one 
continent to the other, before the injuries of time, the effects of vulcanoes, and 
other cataftrophes, had infenfibly diminifhed the fize, and perhaps the number of 
thefe ifles, which form the chain ; and had eaten in the coafts of Afia, which every 
where exhibit traces of the ravages they have undergone *. 
The ifland fwarmed with Sea Otters, which difappeared in March. ‘The 
Urfine Seal fucceeded them in vaft numbers, and quitted the coaft the latter 
end of May. The Leonine Seal, the Lachtach or Great Seal, and the Manati, 
abounded, and proved the fupport of the wrecked during their ftay. Arétic 
Foxes were feen in great multitudes, and completed the lift of Quadrupeds. 
The fame fpecies of water-fowl haunt the rocks, and the fame fpecies of fith 
afcend the rivers, as do in Kamt/chatka. The tides rife here feven or eight feet. 
The bottom of the fea is rocky, correfpondent with the ifland. 
The few plants of this ifland, which have not been difcovered in Kamt/chatka, 
are as follow : 
Campanula, Gm. Sib. iii. 160, 28. Senecio, Gm. Sid. ii. 136, Ne 118. 
Leontodon taraxacum, 4. £.Virg. Arnica montana, 
Hieracium murorum, £. E. Chryfanthemum leucanthemum, 4. 
Tanacetum vulgare, £. Virg. 
Gnaphalium dioicum, 4. 
Thefe, with afew creeping Willows, added to thofe in the Kamt/chatkan Flora, 
form the fum of thofe obferved in Bering’s ifland. 
Mednoi, or the copper ifland, lies a little to the fouth-eaft. A great quantity 
of native copper is found at the foot of a ridge of calcareous mountains on the 
eaftern fide, and may be gathered on the fhores in vaft mafles,.which feems 
originally to have been melted by fubterraneous fires. This ifland is full of 
hillocks, bearing all the appearance of vulcanic fpiracles; which makes it pro= . 
bable, that thefe iflands were rent from the continent by the violence of an earth- 
* Tam indebted to Do&tor Patias for the whole account of this chain of iflands, except where I 
make other references.—My extratts are made from a French Memoir, drawn up by my learned friend, 
and communicated to me. ; 
3 quake. 
