THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
45 
The two “summer” villages in which the natives spend the few Tnonths of the 
sealing season are located on the east side, opposite the corresponding rookeries. 
Tlie first one from the main village is Karahehiij openly situated among the low sand- 
dunes (pi. 34n). All the houses of the natives are small and poorly built huts, many of 
them being yurts or mud-huts. The salt-house and the government’s house are the 
most imposing structures. Occasionally some of the families stay here until Ohrist- 
mas, or even the whole winter, but the Aleuts are too social a people to stand for any 
length of time such isolation for the sake of thrift or economy. The southern village 
is Olinl-a, picturesquely built on the slope of the steep coast escarpment (pis. Sib and 
S.")); otherwise its general features are like those of Karabelui. 
SEAL ROOKERIES. 
The character of the Ooi»per Island seal rookeries, owing to the precipitous nature 
of its coast and the narrowness of its beaches,’ is very different from those on Bering 
Island. There is one quite notable similarity, however, viz, that none are situated on 
the eastern shore of the islands in spite of the fact that this side offers plenty of reefy 
and rocky places which might ap])arently answer all requirements. There are no 
records, to my knowledge, which would indicate that seals ever hauled up on the 
eastern beaches, and there is no reason to believe that they did. 
There are two distinct rookeries on the west side of Copper Island, or, possibly 
we should say, groups of I'ookeries. However, while at rhe present day the various 
hauling or breeding grounds of each group are distinct and separate enough, they are 
manifestly only sections of the larger assemblage mid aie therefore most naturally 
and conveniently treated as such. These two main rookeries, named Karabelui and 
Glinka, corresponding to the summer villages of the same name situated opposite, on 
the east shore, are located in the southeastern half of the island, about miles apart. 
KARABELNOTE ROOKERY. 
The northernmost of the two main rookeries is Karabelui {Karahelnoye lezhhish- 
tclie) located south of the village of like name and easily recogiiized by a very charac- 
teristic isolated rock, Karahehii which rises a hundred feet perpendicularly out 
of the water at the western extremity of the rookery (i)l. 38). 
The “Stolp” is connected with the main beach by a low, flat, gravelly neck, the 
western portion of which is rocky and covered with water- worn bowlders. 
The main coast itself is formed by a series of nearly perpendicular bluffs, the rocky 
sides of which rise above a narrow beach from 200 to 300 feet, and the only way to 
observe this rookery is from some exposed points on the top of these bluffs. From 
their projecting angles, in most cases, long rocky reefs run out into the sea, lietween 
which small coves with a narrow gravelly beach offer shelter for the bn^eding seals and 
their young. The bays thus included commence at a i)rojecting bluff, l)etween which 
and the sea there is no passage by high water, situated just west of the “Stolp,” the 
first one between these two points being called Martishina Bnkhta. Next, on the east 
' So steep are the rocky walls behind the Copper Island rookeries and so close do the seals lie to 
them that falling masses of earth and rocks have occasionally caused the death of many of the animats. 
Thns it is recorded (Otchet Ross. Amerik. Komp. za 18t0, p. 23) that on the 16th of October, 1819. 
during an earthquake, a rocky wall fell down burying a rookery on Copper Island. Another earth- 
slide on one of the Glinka rookeries in 1893 similarly resulted in the killing of many seals. 
