COPPER ISLAND SEAL B00KEEIE8. 61 



Bolshaya Bukhta instead of Serodha—a. practice to be discouraged, as it gives rise to 

 confusion with the hauling ground adjoining the Stolp. 



A glance at the accompanying map (pi. 99) and the photographs of this rookery 

 (pis. 38 to 40) will show how exceedingly difficult the taking of the skins must be 

 The bachelors are chiefly driven from the hauling grounds at Karabelni Stolp, 

 Vodopad, and formerly Krepkaya Pad and Malinka Bukhta. 



From the Stolp the seals are driven northward along the beach of Martishina 

 Bukhta beyond the promontory, v^ich can only be passed at low water, on to the 

 beach of the rather wide and gently curving Stolbovaya BuMta. If the number of 

 seals is so insignificant that the skins can be easily carried on the back and the meat 

 IS not wanted in Karabelni village, then they are driven across the little rivulet which 

 here runs into the sea and are killed on the beach just west of it. The carcasses are 

 left at the water's edge for the waves to carry off. 



The driveway to Karabelni over the mountains is a long and very hard one, being 

 fully 2J miles long. 



In order to facilitate the ascent up the coast escarpmeat a stairway has been built 

 of driftwood logs resting on pegs driven into the ground, as shown in the accompanying 

 photograph (pi. 49&). The upper end of these stairs (68 feet above the sea) enters the 

 little creek mentioned above and the driveway proceeds up the narrow valley. The 

 kettle-shaped upper end of the valley, the sides of which form a slope of about 40 

 degrees, is separated from a similar kettle on the north side by a narrow saddle. This 

 pass I have determined to be 643 feet.^ The descent is steep, but not so high as on 

 the south side, and the driveway now follows the bed of the little creek, as the narrow 

 V-shaped valley affords no other road. The lower end of the drive, after it enters 

 the grass-covered sandy plain back of the Karabelni village, where the killing grounds 

 are situated, is comparatively easy. 



The salt house was formerly situated at the front of the village, east of the river 

 and of the large rock iu the bay called Urili Kamen. The beach there is not very 

 safie or convenient for'loading the skins into the boats or landing the salt, for which 

 reason a new one has been built at Popofshi, the "small "bay" just west of Urili 

 Kamen (pi. 63a). 



From Vodopad the driveway, if it is deemed necessary to take the meat to the 

 village, is longer by at least a mile over the high plateau northeast of the rookery, 

 besides being very severe in other respects. The grassy slopes of the valley opening 

 at this point are very slippery and" steep (about 30°), but the greatest hardship is 

 caused by the exceedingly difficult ascent of the bluff before reaching the valley. 

 The bluff here consists of the naked hard rock, and consequently steps built of drift- 

 wood logs, as at Stolbovaya Bukhta, were out of the question. They had to be roughly 

 cut out of the rock. itself, as shown in the accompanying photograph (pi. 45), which 

 will give a better idea of this extraordinary place than any description. It will be 

 seen that the side next to the picturesque waterfall is nearly perpendicular, in fact so 

 steep that the men can not follow the drive up on that side in order to urge the seals 

 on and to prevent them from going down over the precipice. To remedy this a rope 

 is stretched from the top down to the beach, as is plainly shown in the photograph 

 to the right of the fall. When seals are driven, rags and scraps of paper are fastened 

 to this rope, which is kept in constant motion so as to frighten them and urge them on. 



' Average of 6 observations on July 3 to 8, 1883. 



