Seward weekly gateway., 1906-09-15
HOW BOGOSLOF WAS BORN
Baranoff Describes Uplifting of Vol
 canic Island in Aleutians

Canic Island in Aleutians
 A New York Post correspondent is "ghost dancing" as he calls it, along the Aleutian archipelago, and study inc the volcanoes of that region. He resurrects from BaranoG, the Russian trader of the eighteenth century, the description of the uplifting of Bogos- lof island, near which two later vol- canic islands have been thrown up, the last early in the present summer.
 Ion the lst of May l796, storm arose near Umnak island and con- tfnued for several days. 1t was very dark all the time, and low noises re- sembling thunder were continually heard. On the third day the sky be- came clear very early, and a flame was seen arising from the sea between Unalaska and Umnak. North of the latter smoke was observed for ten days. At the end of this time, from l Unalaska round white mass was seen rising out of the sea. During the night fire arose in the same locality, so that objects ten miles of were dis tinctly visible. An earthquake shook Unalaska, and was accompanied by fearful noises. Rocks were thrown from the new volcano as far as Umnak. l With sunrise the noises ceased, the fire diminished, ane the new island was seen in the form of black cone. It was named after St. John the Theo- l Iogian-Johanna Bogoslova. .'
 Yet. mark. as late as 1883 new island arose in Boring sea, precisely ! in the same manner, and only few miles from Bogoslof. It is called Grewingk.
 1 Grewingk was wise old German geographer, who about the middle oi last century made an exhaustive study of the Alaskan volcanic belt without visiting the region. Most accurate knowledge Of it's craters is traceable to him; but in no region of the world IS such knowledge more unreliable. . Grewingk at least had the sense to. doubt that Mt. St. Elias was volcanic, although it was assumed to be so by Americans who visited it, up to the early nineties, when Prof, Russell pricked up the illusion and placed St. ] Elias as a volcano among the great list of geographic hoaXes from the mythl- cal Mount Itazahn of biblical days to Mounts Brown and Hooker, the mod ern l6,OOO-foot fakes of the Canadian Rockies. St. Elias was even stated to have been afre in 1889 and lS47. Grewingk names forty-one Alaskan cones active within the previous 100 years.
 The correspondent seems to approve of the picturesqueness of "this archi- pelago of fog and surf and busy vol canoes, g of which he writes:
 "Here are a thousand miles of snowy ash-cones and treeless bights, inces- sanity in fog, pounded from the south over uncharted reefs by the Pacific ocean. which reaches almost unbroken to the south pole; on the north by the shallo%er, and so harsher swells of Boring sea. Twelve to twenty-five days each month rain or snow falls, often more than 300 inches a year. Only rare flashes of sunlight reveal the purple lupine add pale poppy flow ering on desolate volcanic ridges, sea lions glistening on the shelves of out lying Gibraltars-murres, red-throated pufins A tiny monthly steamer sweeps the eastern half of these wild shores, calling at about five harbors- such names as Belkofsky, Unga, Uyak, Chignik-small gold mines, salmon canneries, Siwash trading posts, supply stores for lone prospectors, generally suuawmen, who hope for wealth in coal or sulphur, for all vessels sailing by great circle to the Orient from our north coast must sight these islands at the exact middle of their voyage. And our national laws, which in Alaska, at least, are respected over into the new day beyond the sunset, demand that a miner must do a hundred dol lars worth of development" each year to hold his claim. Once Q year a lighthouse tender visits the two new beacons on Unimak island, which is the most are-blasted of them all, with
 ts three live volcanoes in stretch of fifty miles, and so turbulent that for decades, it is said, no aborigines have lived there.