NOTES ON THE POINT HOPE SPIT, ALASKA ISI 
five fathoms and a shoal with four fathoms at its southern end extends 
some three miles in a west-northwest directin from the Point.! 
The materials composing the spit are much coarser than those of 
many spits. Much of it may be properly called shingle, while coarse 
gravel and a small proportion of sand comprise the remainder of the 
material. The coarser materials are composed of limestone and 
chert. From the point where the spit joins the delta deposits at Jab- 
bertown to its western extremity, its length is about eight miles. The 
surface of the spit has an elevation ranging from thirteen to seventeen 
feet above the sea. Its greatest width is near the mission where it is 
about one mile from the north to the south side.? From this point 
it tapers gradually toward the east. It reaches its minimum width 
near its base where it is less than a quarter of a mile across. 
An interesting feature in the make-up of the spit is a series of regu- 
lar straight canal-like depressions trending nearly east and west and 
lying parallel with the south shore. ‘The northwest shore line cuts 
these channels at an acute angle. The bottoms of the channels are 
depressed below the general surface of the spit from two to six feet. 
The shallower ones are entirely dry and would hardly be noticeable 
were it not for their distinct parallelism with the deeper ones. Water 
remains throughout the summer in two or three of the deeper ones, 
and it is from this source that the native village secures its water supply. 
In width these depressions will range perhaps between forty and 
one hundred feet, and the intervening spaces will average probably 
two hundred feet. The sides curve very gently into the surface of 
the interval separating them, which frequently is slightly convex. 
These canals all extend to the northwest beach, which cuts them off 
forming an acute angle with the north border of the depression. 
To the eastward most if not all of them can be recognized at least 
two miles from the western extremity of the point. Two of them 
are considerably deeper at this distance than farther west. Near 
t Lieutenant D. H. Jarvis, “‘Coast Pilot Notes on the Fox Islands Passes, Unalaska 
Bay, Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean as far as Pt. Barrow,” Bull. Coast and Geod. 
Survey, No. 40, p. 56, 1900. 
2 As a basis for determining the amount of wave-cutting on the northwest shore 
of the spit by future observers, the distance from the north side of the mission observa- 
tory to the water line on the northwest beach was measured on a north and south (true) 
line and found to be 525 feet. 
