JANUARY 25, 1884.] 
summarized, it being remembered that the 
island is over thirty miles from the nearest 
land, and about forty from the nearest habita- 
tions on Unalashka. 
On the ist of May (old style), 1796, accord- 
ing to one Kriukoff, then the Russian American 
company’s agent at Unalashka, a storm arose 
near Umnak, and continued for several days. 
During this time it was very dark, and low 
noises resembling thunder were continually 
heard. By daybreak on the 3d of May the 
storm ceased, and the sky became clear. Be- 
tween Unalashka and Umnak, and northward 
from the latter island, a flame was seen arising 
from the sea, and smoke was observed for ten 
days about the same locality. At the end of 
this time, from Unalashka, a rounded white 
mass was seen rising out of the sea. During 
the night, fire arose in the same place, so that 
objects ten miles off were distinctly visible. 
Pinnacle Island, W.S. W., 10 miles. 
Fie. 7. 
An earthquake shook Unalashka, and was ac- 
companied by fearful noises. Stones, or pum- 
ice, were thrown from the new volcano as far 
as Umnak. With sunrise the noises ceased, 
the fire diminished, and the upraised island was 
seen as a sharp black crag. It was named 
-after St. John the theologian, though it does 
not appear for what reason. It did not rise, 
according to the above account, on hisday. A 
month later it was appreciably higher, and 
emitted flames constantly. It continued to 
rise, but steam and smoke took the place of 
fire. In 1800 the smoking appeared to cease, 
and in 1804 a party of hunters visited the is- 
land. ‘They found the sea warm about it, and 
the surface, in some places at least, too hot to 
walk upon, even if the distorted fragments of 
lava, which formed its base, were accessible to 
alanding. It was said to be two miles and a 
half in circumference, and three hundred and 
fifty feet high. 
1 In ‘ Alaska and its resources,’ by an accident in the histori- 
eal chapter, the item relating to the rising of this volcano from 
the sea was misplaced ten years, and appears under 1806, though 
properly dated in the geological chapter. An agent of the cen- 
sus by the name of Petroff, believing apparently that a little 
imagination would enliven his statistics, and misled by this erro- 
neous date, gives in his report an account of an eye-witness of 
the phenomenon, ‘ born in 1797,’ and ‘ who was one of the indi- 
viduals who first noted’ it, and with such terror ‘that his trem- 
bling knees could scarce carry him back to report!’ (H.R. ex. 
doc. No. 40, p. 19, 1881.) 
SCIENCE. 91 
In 1806 fissures appeared, lined with crystals 
of sulphur. According to Langsdorff, who saw 
it in this year,’ it did not exhibit any special 
activity, though steam and smoke arose more 
or less constantly. In this year three baidars 
visited the island. On the north side soft lava 
flowed into the sea, and it was too hot to ap- 
proach closely ; but on the southern end a land- 
ing was effected. The peak was too sharp and 
rugged to be ascended, and the rock was very 
hot. A piece of seal meat suspended in a 
crevice was thoroughly cooked in a short time. 
There was no soil nor fresh water. 
The only map or survey of Bogosloff and 
vicinity known by us to exist is that of Kru- 
senstern, published in 1826, a facsimile of 
which is here given, except that the evidently 
formal hachuring has been omitted. Since 
1823, and up to the present year, the island 
has remained tranquil, and its form has not 
Li 
Pinnacle Island, N. N. W., 6 miles. 
Fig. 8. 
changed. The close similarity to our own, of 
Lutké’s profile taken in 1827, confirms this 
view. ‘The widely differing estimates of its 
height and area given by Grewingk illustrate 
the futility of unchecked guessing rather than 
any change in the island itself; and even the 
map, which could have had no base-line except 
one measured by log on the water, though rela- 
tively correct, represents, according to our ob- 
servations, a scale about one-quarter too large, 
the island being about a mile and a quarter 
long, instead of a mile and three quarters, as 
the map gives it. 
We have not space here to discuss the de- 
tailed process by which our conclusions have 
been reached, but will briefly state them. 
The site of Bogosloff was a low islet or clus- 
ter of rocks not identical with the present Ship 
Rock, and which were long known to the 
Aleuts, and mapped by Levasheff. In 1795- 
96 a series of progressive disturbances oc- 
curred by which, in May, 1796, a considerable 
mass of material was upheaved and the major 
part of the present island formed. The reports 
of exactly what occurred, as well as the dates 
assigned, are discrepant and all unsatisfactory, 
when we recollect the distance from which the 
alleged observations were made, and that they 
were not noted down until several years after- 
