BERING SEA 
187 
by another high authority 1 that there are no evidences of 
glaciation, either general or local, on these various coasts 
and islands. A third investigator, 2 also of high rank, 
ascribes the fiords of the Siberian coast to glaciers, but 
finds no evidence of glaciation on the neighboring coast 
of Alaska about Port Clarence. My own opportunities 
for observation were limited to a few hours each on St. 
Paul, St Matthew and Hall islands, a few hours sailing 
past the Siberian coast, with a brief landing in Plover Bay, 
a distant view of Cape York, a point southeast of Cape 
Prince of Wales, and a few hours on the tundra near Port 
Clarence. The scanty facts thus gathered can not be 
expected to settle the vexed question; but, in view of the 
wide diversity of existing opinion, it appears worth while 
to make record of even hasty observations and first im¬ 
pressions. 
Of St. Paul Island we saw the southern peninsula. The 
land is there composed of remnants of volcanic cones 
FIG. 89. CRATER RIM ON ST. PAUL ISLAND. 
Shows projections which would not survive glaciation. Photograph by U. S. Coast Survey. 
whose softened profiles indicate long-continued weather¬ 
ing. The forms are smooth, except where cut by the sea 
1 W. H. Dali. Bull. 84 U. S. Geol. Survey, p. 258, 1892. Alaska and its Re¬ 
sources, pp. 461-464, 1870. 
2 A. E. Nordenskiold. The Voyage of the Vega. New York ed., pp. 569, 
583-585, 1882. 
