200 



These facts are the more remarkable, since in southeastern 

 Alaska, lying both to the north and south of here, and on the 

 many islands of the Alexander Archipelago, as well as on the 

 mainland, forests of beautiful conifers flourish exuberantly and 

 attain noble dimensions, while the climatic conditions generally 

 do not appear to differ greatly from those that obtain on these 

 treeless islands. 



Wherever cattle have been introduced they have prospered 

 and grown fat on the abundance of rich nutritious pasturage 

 to be found almost everywhere in the deep, withdrawing valleys 

 and on the green slopes of the hills and mountains, but the wet- 

 ness of the summer months will always prevent the making of 

 hay in any considerable quantities. 



The agricultural possibilities of these islands seem also to be 

 very limited. The hardier of the cereals — rye, barley, and oats 

 — make a good, vigorous growth, and head out, but seldom or 

 never mature, on account of insufficient sunshine and over- 

 abundance of moisture in the form of long-continued, drizzling 

 fogs and rains. Green crops, however, as potatoes, turnips, 

 cabbages, beets, and most other common garden vegetables, 

 thrive wherever the ground is thoroughly drained and has a 

 southerly exposure. 



St. Lawrence Island 



St. Lawrence Island, as far as our observations extended, is 

 mostly a dreary mass of granite and lava of various forms and 

 colors, roughened with volcanic cones, covered with snow, and 

 rigidly bound in ocean ice for half the year. Inasmuch as it 

 lies broadsidewise to the direction pursued by the great ice- 

 sheet that recently filled Bering Sea, and its rocks offered un- 

 equal resistance to the denuding action of the ice, the island is 

 traversed by numerous ridges and low, gap-like valleys all 

 trending in the same general direction. Some of the lowest 

 of these transverse valleys have been degraded nearly to the 

 level of the sea, showing that if the glaciation to which the 

 island has been subjected had been slightly greater, we should 

 have found several islands here instead of one. 



