340 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, guished by three small peaks, which, one of them in particular, have 
the appearance of craters ; St. George’s consists of two hills united 
1 cofi moderately high ground, and is higher than St. Paul’s ; both were 
covered with a brown vegetation. Sea-otter Island is very small, and 
little better than a rock. The Kussians have long had settlements upon 
both the large islands, subordinate to the establishment at Sitka, and 
annually send thither for peltry, consisting principally of the skins of 
amphibious animals, which, from their fine furry nature, are highly 
valued by the Chinese and Tartar nations. I have given the geogra- 
phical position of these islands in the Appendix ; and for a further 
account of them, the reader is referred to Langsdorff’s Travels, and to 
Kotzebue’s Voyage. 
At sunset we lost sight of St. Paul’s Island, and being at that time 
ignorant of the position of St. George’s, further than what knowledge 
was derived from a rough notice of it in the geological account of 
Kotzebue’s Voyage, we pursued our course with some anxiety, as the 
night was dark and unsettled, and the morning came without our ob- 
taining a sight of the island. On approaching the Aleutian Islands, 
we found them obscured by a dense white haze which hung to wind- 
ward of the land ; and the wind increasing with every appearance of a 
gale, our situation became one of great difficulty. Early in the morning 
a peak was seen for so short a time that it only served to show us that 
w^e were not far from the land, without enabling us to determine which 
of the islands we were near ; and as in this part of the Aleutian Chain 
there are several passages so close together, that one may easily be mis- 
taken for the other, an accurate knowledge of the position of the ship is 
of the greatest importance. Under our circumstances, I relied on the ac- 
curacy of Cook’s chart, and steered due east, knowing that if land were 
seen in that parallel, it could be no other than the island of Oonemak ; 
and that then, should the fog not clear away, the course might still be 
directed along that island to the southward. 
This is a precaution I strongly recommend to any person who may 
have to seek a channel through this chain in foggy weather, parti- 
cularly as these passages are said to be rendered dangerous by the rapid 
tides which set through them. It was no doubt these tides, added 
