124 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



course, only about a mile distant. ^^^ It lay NE and SW in 

 relation to the mainland of America and did not seem to be very 

 high, but rather low, with flat and sandy beaches. For the second 

 time we had here occasion to see plainly God's gracious help, 

 as we should have been done for without fail if we had come into 

 this situation a couple of hours sooner and in the dark of night, 

 or if God, even now, had not driven the fog away. We might 

 well conclude that, in addition to the islands seen, there must 

 have been many others here and there along our course, which 

 we may have sailed past at night and in foggy weather, indicated, 

 it is true, by the seaweed constantly drifting from land towards 

 us. Similarly, about this time a small species of diver, known as 

 starik,^^^ flew aboard our vessel during the night; these birds 

 habitually pass the night on the rocks and fly against everything 



284 Buldir Island (see Vol. i, p. 201, footnote 114. and p. 339)- As to a 

 different identification, namely as Kiska Island, see Vol. i, p. 199, foot- 

 note III. Steller's immediately following statement, that the island 

 trends NE-SW, to a certain extent fits Kiska better, although it might 

 apply to the transverse southeastern portion of Buldir, but the specific 

 statement in Khitrov's journal (Vol. i, p. 201, footnote 115) that the 

 island sighted on October 28 trended WNW-ESE, which is precisely 

 the trend of the longitudinal, or main, portion of Buldir (U. S. Coast 

 Chart No. 9102), would seem to confirm the identification as Buldir. 

 Steller's description of the island as not very high (see, however, Yushin's 

 log book 7 A.M. entry "sighted high land," Vol. i, p. 201) would apply 

 equally to Buldir and to the southern part of Kiska, both of which do 

 not exceed 1 200-1 500 feet in height (the northern part of Kiska, con- 

 sisting of a volcanic cone of 4050 feet altitude, may even have been 

 thought by the officers of the St. Peter to be a separate island; see Vol. 

 I, p. 199, footnote 112); but Steller's statement that the island's beaches 

 were flat and sandy could only apply to Buldir, as Kiska's shores are 

 described as "hilly and rocky" (U. S. Coast Pilot. Part II: Yakutat Bay 

 to Arctic Ocean, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, 1916, 

 p. 222). If to these criteria be added the probable position of the St. Peter 

 at the time of sighting the islands in this region, as discussed in Vol. i, 

 p. 199, footnote III, the identification as Buldir seems highly probable. 



(J) 



286 Starik (a Russian word meaning old man; so called probably from 

 the white hairlike feathers on the head; hence Gmelin's name Alca 

 antiquus and Pallas' Uria senicida) is the "ancient murrelet" (Synthli- 



