338 Prof. John Milne — A Cruise among the Kurile Islands. 



Little Kurile Strait, about two miles wide. As compared with the 

 other islands in this group, Shumushi is extremely flat. Looking at 

 it as we approached the northern entrance of the Little Kurile Strait, 

 it presented an undulating surface. Where the convexity of these 

 undulations came down to the shore, they terminated in low perpen- 

 dicular cliffs. In other places which marked the low sweeping 

 valleys, the land rose gently upwards and backwards as it receded 

 inland. It was opposite to the entrance of one of these valleys at a 

 place called Myrup where we anchored. Here there were three 

 wooden houses which had been built by the Eussians, and quite 

 a number (perhaps a score) of half-underground dwellings. On 

 landing we found that all these were deserted, and in many cases 

 even difficult to find, owing to the growth of wormwood and wild 

 grasses. 



The inhabitants of the island, who call themselves Kurilsky, are 

 twenty-three in number. They chiefly live at a place called Seleno 

 about four miles distant. In addition to their own language, they 

 speak Eussian very fluently, and also know something of the Aino 

 language. For the last three or four years they have lived on fish, 

 a few blay-berries and the various animals they could shoot, I 

 mention these people as they appear to be the only inhabitants in the 

 Kuriles north of Iterup. By going up the bed of a small stream which 

 flows down the Myrup valley, and by travelling along the shore, I 

 saw several exposures whicli showed beds of breccia overlying beds 

 of volcanic rock. At a distance this breccia is generally of a whitish 

 grey colour. Looking along the shore from Myrup northwards, you 

 apparently see beds of grey breccia overlying beds of a black 

 volcanic rock. On close inspection, however, the black rock is seen 

 to be also a breccia, coarse in its lower portion, where it contains 

 fragments of rocks, gradually becoming finer higher up, and finally 

 merging into a grey tuff. The difference in colour seems to be 

 greatly due to a difference in weathering and the action of the sea. 

 Here and there standing up through this breccia are bands and 

 masses of volcanic rock. One of the former of these, which has had 

 the breccia worn away from its sides, stands up at right angles to the 

 shore-line like a huge wall. 



Its continuance towards Paramushir is marked by outliers which, 

 by the action of the sea- waves, have gradually been cut off from it. 

 At right angles to its length — that is, in a direction running from side 

 to side — it is seen to have a columnar structure, which, whilst adding 

 to its peculiar appearance, gives you some idea of the way in which 

 it cooled. 



Up the valleys masses of a similar rock are also to be found. 

 Upon the sloping sides of these valleys the breccia (which was 

 friable) is thick, but it is thinner near the tops of the hills. 



As we entered the straits, to see headland facing headland was 

 very noticeable. If we imagined the curves of the volcanic ridges 

 from Paramushir to be continued eastwards across the straits, it was 

 clearly evident that in many cases they would make an unbroken line. 



When on Shumushi, by looking across the Straits at Paramushir, 



