TOPOGR.\PHV AND GEOLOGY 199 



the same direction resembles the waves of the sea and that [this 

 configuration] discloses the probable marine origin of the 

 mountains,^! I have also made in the mountains not only of 

 this island but generally in Kamchatka and Siberia. I also find 

 correct in this part of the world what he says about the develop- 

 ment^2 of valleys and the spurs lying opposite the reentrants,* 

 likewise the deduction drawn from this to the effect that these 

 changes have been caused gradually by high floods, earthquakes, 

 and other circumstances. 



As regards the shore of this island, it is so remarkably con- 

 stituted that without incurring suspicion one may say that we 

 were preser\'ed by a miracle of God on this island and saved 

 from complete destruction. Although the length of the island is 

 23 Dutch miles there is nevertheless on the whole northern side 

 not a single place that could in any way serve as a harbor, 

 even for a small vessel. For two to three, and in some places 

 four to five, versts out to sea the shore is occupied entirely by 

 rough reefs and rocks, so that at low tide one can walk out to 

 sea dryshod for this distance, which is afterwards covered at 

 high tide; and with the falling tide the waves are so high and 



*i The words here translated by "because of many ridges running in 

 the same direction" in the pubhshed version read: "durch viele, nach 

 gewissen Gegenden laufende Absatze." 



Louis Bourguet (1678-1742), a French naturaHst and archeologist 

 long resident in Neuchatel, Switzerland, where a chair of philosophy and 

 mathematics was established for him. His theories of the marine origin 

 of mountains and the development of valleys, to which Steller refers, 

 are probably discussed in his "Memoire sur la theorie de la terre," which 

 forms part of his "Lettres philosophiques sur la formation des sels et 

 des cristaux, etc.," Amsterdam, 1729 (see also Nouvelle Biographic 

 Generale, edited by Hoefer, Firmin Didot, Paris, Vol. 7, 1855, col. 92: 

 "c'est ainsi qu'un des premiers il fit remarquer la correspondance des 

 angles saillants et des angles rentrants dans les chaines de montagnes"). 



42 The MS has "shape." 



* Steller had not been in the higher mountains on the border of 

 Siberia. In mountains of lower and middle elevations, where the valleys 

 have been eroded by rain, streams, and springs, Bourguet's rule is indeed 

 valid.— P. 



