AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. .17
molest. To-day at least they know it, or they would not submit to these manifestations which we have just cited, so close to their knowledge.
The Lagoon rookery, however, never can be a large one, on account of the very nature of this ground selected by the seals; it is a bar simply pushed up beyond the surf-wash of boulders, waterworn and rounded, which has almost enclosed and cut away the Lagoon from its parent sea. In my opinion, the time is not far distant when that estuary will be another inland lake of St. Paul, walled out from salt water and freshened by rain and melting snow, as are the other pools, lakes, and lakelets on the island.
Zapadnie, in itself, is something like the Reef plateau on its eastern face, for it slopes up gradually and gently to the paradeplateau above-a parade-ground not so smooth, however, being very rough and rocky, but which the seals enjoy. Just around the point, a low strip of rocky bar and beach connects it with the ridge-walls of Southwest Point, a very small breeding rookery, so small that it is not worthy of a survey, is located here. I think, probably, on account of the nature of the ground, that it will never hold its own, and is more than likely abandoned by this time.
One of the prehistoric villages, the village of Pribylov's time, was established here between that point and the cemetery ridge, on which the northern wing of Zapadnie rests. An old buryingground, with its characteristic Russian crosses and faded pictures of the saints, is plainly marked on the ridge. It was at this little bight of sandy landing that Pribylov's men first came ashore and took possession of the island, while others in the same season proceeded to Northeast Point and to the north shore to establish settlements of their own order. When the indiscriminate sealing of 1868 was in progress, one of the parties lived here, and a salt-house which was then erected by them still stands. It is in a very fair state of preservation, although it has never been occupied since, except by the natives who come over here from the village in the summer to pick those berries of the Empetrum and Rubus, which abound in the greatest profusion around the rough and rocky flats that environ a little lake adjacent The young people of St. Paul are very fond of this berry-festival, so-called among themselves, and they stay there every August, camping out, a week or ten days at a time, before returning to their homes in the village.
So abundant have been the seals that no driving of animals from