THE KURIL ISLANDS 
3 
innumerable guillemots, gulls, shags, and other birds, 
were located on the ledges of the cliffs, laying their 
eggs close to the disturbed portion of the island. 
At each thundering and splashing noise made by the 
masses of rock rolling down clouds of these birds 
would fly screaming off, to return and settle again a 
few minutes later. 
How long this slow upheaval lasted I am unable 
to say. It was going on during the three or four 
days I remained around the islands, and, judging 
from the distance to which the point was extended, 
and the quantity and height of the mass, I should 
say it must have continued at least for some weeks. 
Hot springs are found on most of the islands. On 
the western side of Rashau, about three and a half 
miles from South Cape, is a spring of warm water with 
a temperature of 111° F. It emerges from the base 
of some high cliffs, and runs over a ledge of flat rocks 
in which are several crevices and hollows about as 
large as a good-sized bath-tub. These hollows are 
always full of hot water, and make capital bathing- 
places, but I never saw or heard of the spring being 
used by the natives who lived on the island. The 
water is clear, tasteless, and odourless, and does not 
discolour the rocks over which it flows. 
Kunashir has boiling springs, and on Yetorup 
there are a number of hot springs, some of which are 
resorted to by the inhabitants for the cure of skin 
diseases, rheumatism, etc. Ushishir has a boiling 
spring inside the crater, on the south-eastern side. 
Here, at the base of the hills, the ground widens out 
into a flattish area, on which a bank of sulphurous 
earth has been formed ; through this bank fumaroles 
emit steam, bright yellow, flourlike sulphur being 
