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SIIISIIALDIN AS A FIELD FOR EXPLORATION 



pied by it and the associated peaks. This island, some 70 miles 

 long, with an average width of 15 or 20 miles, crowded with 

 extinct volcanoes and separated only by a shallow pass from 

 the Alaskan peninsula, is the first member of the Aleutian archi- 

 pelago — that chain of submerged mountains which with its pro- 

 longation, the Commander islands, sweeps from continent to 

 continent, describing across the North Pacific ocean an arc of 

 more than a thousand miles. 



Shishaldin is undoubtedly still an active volcano, but how 

 active cannot be accurately known until some explorer stands 

 on its summit. There are recent stories by some who claim to 

 have seen flame-colored vapors rising from it, and by others who 

 assert they saw columns of smoke ascending. In 1897 I saw 



SKETCH MAP OF ALASKA 



Showing mail route and suggested field for exploration 



what appeared to be banners of steam issuing from it; but fogs 

 are frequent here and snow carried by the winds about the peaks 

 of mountains of high altitudes play deceitful pranks. There are 

 two very intelligent and well-to-do traders (Charles Rosenberg 

 and Charles Swanson) who live with their families at Morshovia 

 village, near the base of the mountain. While on a trip in their 

 schooner to Dutch Harbor, Unalaska bay, last summer for sup- 

 plies they told me that the volcano is now in a state of eruption, 

 and that at night they had seen, high on the slopes, tongues 

 of molten lava creeping slowly down the mountain side and 

 branching around obstacles lying in their course, thus leaving 

 islands between the fiery streams. They asserted also that ashes 

 are ejected from the crater, and that on hunting trips they had 

 ascended far enough to detect the heat and recognize the sul- 

 phurous fumes. 



