2o6 DESCRIPTION OF BERING ISLAND 



the tremor continued on land I could not observe the slightest 

 unusual motion in the sea. The air, moreover, was sunny and 

 clear and the weather pleasant. The other earthquake occurred 

 on the first of July towards evening at five o'clock during very 

 clear and pleasant weather with the wind from the east. 



We had not the least cause to complain of great cold, and in 

 the two years 1740 and 1741 it did not happen that ice collected 

 in the sea and could be driven here from the mainland, as I had 

 often desired, in order thereby to confirm my opinion that the 

 drift ice in Kamchatka [was derived] from the American rivers 

 and that the sea otters went on it when it was passing the 

 islands of the Channel ^^ and was driven about by the wind for a 

 time in their vicinity. 



At our arrival on the island on November 6 we did not find 

 any snow except only on the high mountains; by contrast snow 

 up to an arshin deep falls as early as the middle of October not 

 only at Kamchatka but also two degrees farther south on the 

 Kurilian Lopatka [Cape Lopatka] and at Avacha [Bay].^^ But 

 the snow remains all the longer [on Bering Island] and does not 

 melt in the level places before the middle of May, in the moun- 

 tains not before the end of June, and on their highest summits 

 and the northward slopes not at all. The amount of snow is as 

 in Kamchatka, namely lying on level ground to a depth of about 

 1 3^ fathoms. The narrow valleys between mountains are often 

 drifted full of snow from top to bottom because of the violent 

 winds. It happens not infrequently that whole mountains, 

 especially in the spring, divest themselves of their snow at 

 once; we therefore were in no little danger, as necessity forced 



68 See, above, p. 73. footnote 149. 



69 The MS reads: "not only at Kamchatka but also four degrees 

 farther south at Lopatka and about Avacha." By Kamchatka is prob- 

 ably meant Lower Kamchatka Post or its equivalent, the mouth of the 

 Kamchatka River. The difference in latitude between these points and 

 Cape Lopatka is about 5° (see Vol. i, PI. I), but Steller believed that the 

 mouth of the Kamchatka River lay in the same latitude as Bering Island, 

 which he knew to be near the 55th parallel (see, above, p. 130). But 

 the mouth of the Kamchatka River lies in 56°; hence his figure. 



