198 DESCRIPTION OF BERING ISLAND 



is hardly or not at all passable then it is all the more wide, level, 

 and sandy on the southern. 



Caves and fissures which seemingly have been caused at 

 different times by earthquakes are to be found in various types 

 and at different places. The cave named after me, just referred 

 to, and Yushin's Sherlop^^ are the most important. 



On the highest mountains and their uppermost summits I have 

 observed that a heart or core, as it were, projects from their 

 center and ends in a bare, conical, upright rock, which, while it 

 does not differ from the rest of the rock formation, is at least 

 much softer and purer and in addition has a definite shape. I 

 met with such quartzes points in 1739 in the mountains along 

 Lake Baikal and on Olkhon Island, which lies in it. From 

 Anadyrsk I received another kind of rock, green almost like 

 malachite, somewhat transparent and fibrous like stalactites,^^ 

 with the information that this type of rock there also projects 

 from the summits of the mountains in the same manner and 

 that when broken off it is even said to grow again*" — which, if this 

 is so, would possibly have to be explained by the inward pressure.* 



When the land suddenly changes its direction and abruptly 

 continues toward a different region I have always observed that 

 the shore for one or two versts first becomes very rocky and 

 that the mountains extend out to the shore, are very steep, and 

 are broken up at their ends in separate cliffs and columns. 

 Moreover, Bourguet's observation in the Pyrenees, that the 

 surface of the mountains because of many ridges running in 



3^ Its location cannot be identified, nor is the meaning clear of "Sher- 



38 The MS has "alabaster." [lop," which may be a garbled word. 



39 Instead of "green almost like malachite, somewhat transparent and 

 fibrous like stalactites" the MS has "which is like malachite, green, 

 somewhat transparent, and resembles stalactites." 



40 From here to the end of the paragraph the MS reads: "and this 

 seems to be the result of internal movements and especially the pressure 

 of the mountains toward the center, and these points consequently 

 [seem to be] a kind of rock crystal — material, at first pliable but then 

 solidified, which represents the real inner nature of the rock." 



* Denudation and erosion of the enclosing rp ck, whereby such a core 

 may be increasingly exposed, seem to me more natural causes. — P. 



