SALMON AND SALMON RIVERS OF ALASKA. 
185 
Near the Arctic Packing Company’s cannery, at Larsen’s Bay, Mr. Booth describes 
“a large tract which apparently consists wholly of peat to a considerable depth. 
Above it is a small pond from which the cannery draws a portion of its water supply, 
the other portion being taken from springs which rise through the peat bog. At one 
of these springs an excavation 6 feet in depth did not reach the bottom of the peat 
deposit. Such deposits exist also in many places in the Karlnk River Valley, and 
probably in the Sturgeon Eiver Valley and others of similar topographical features. 
They may be a valuable source of fuel supply in the future if suitable means for dry- 
ing the peat could be devised. As yet no attempt has been made to utilize them nor 
has any of this peat been experimented with so far as my information goes.” 
Photographs were made of the salmon fleet anchored in Uyak Bay during a south- 
west gale, of the harbor near the mouth of this bay looking across Shelikoff Strait and 
also to the northeast, besides Larsen’s Bay, including the canning establishment of 
the Arctic Packing Company. 
AFOGNAK BAT. 
(Plates Lxxix and lxxxvi.) 
After having completed preparations for a trip to Afognak Island, to make col- 
lections and photographs and continue our study of the salmon, Mr. Lewis and I were 
poisoned by a plant which we supposed to be wild celery and had to remain at Karluk. 
Mr. Booth and Mr. Stone accordingly made the excursion and investigated the phys- 
ical characteristics of Afognak Bay, lake, and river, and the possibilities of conducting 
a salmon-hatching establishment in that region. Mr. Booth’s account is given below. 
Mr. Stone’s report will be referred to elsewhere : 
“ The interior of Afognak Island is, from the best accounts, made up of flat marshy 
valleys separated by mountain chains from 1,500 to 2,000 feet high. These valleys 
contain many lakes, which connect by means of short rivers and shallow estuaries 
with deep narrow inlets leading to the open sea. The most important of these is the 
Afognak River, and in Afognak Bay, the inlet at the mouth of its estuary, are situated 
the canneries of the Royal and Russian American Packing Companies. This river is 
but short, its total length measured from the point where it leaves the lake to the 
upper end of Afognak Bay being not more than 3 miles. 
“ As the whole of Afognak Lake can be seen from the source of the river, and our 
time was limited, it was not explored. Its extreme length does not exceed 3 miles, 
and its greatest width is about three-fourths of a mile. The general configuration is 
shown on the accompanying chart. It derives its water supply from small streams 
,, coming directly down from the surrounding hills and ereeks, which drain two wide 
i valleys to tbe northward. The lake seems to be surrounded by a thick fringe of 
spruce woods, except at its extreme north end, which is grass-covered, with here and 
1 there elumps of alder. Where the river leaves the lake it is about 130 feet wide, but 
narrows down to 70 feet in width in the course of 100 yards, and after going about 
j one-third of a mile narrows still more, being there not more than 40 feet wide. Thus 
I far it keeps an almost straight course, so much so as to remind one of a canal. From 
1 here on it winds about in long curves until it reaches a water-fall about 2 miles below 
the lake. Here the river crosses either a dike or a bed of very hard sandstone (the 
j rock is much decomposed so that it is hard to tell its original character), falling about 
I 20 feet in a series of cascades about 70 feet long. 
