[Sidenote: Animals.] The island Alaksu is said to contain rein-deer, bears, wild boars, wolves, otters, and a species of dogs with long ears, which are very fierce and wild. And as the greatest part of these animals are not found upon those Fox Islands which lie nearer to the west, this circumstance seems to prove that Alaksu is situated at no great distance from the Continent of America. As to red, black, and grey foxes, there is so large a quantity, that they are seen in herds of ten or twenty at a time. Wood is driven upon the coast in great abundance. The island produces no large trees, having only some underwood, and a great variety of bulbs, roots, and berries. The coasts are frequented by large flocks of sea-birds, the same which are observed upon the shore of the sea of Penshinsk.
[Sidenote: Voyage of the Peter and Paul to the Aleütian Islands, 1759.] August 4, 1759, the Peter and Paul, fitted out at the expence of the merchant Rybenskoi by his agent Andrew Serebranikoff, and manned with thirty-three persons, set sail from the mouth of the Kamtchatka river. They steered southwards until the 20th of September without seeing any land, when they stood for the Aleütian Isles, one of which they reached the 27th of September. They remained there until the 24th of June, 1761; during which time they killed upon this and the two other islands 1900 old and young sea-otters, and obtained 450 more by bartering with the islanders. The Cossac Minyachin, who was on board as collector of the tribute, calls in his account the first island by the Russian name of Krugloi, or Round Island, which he supposes to be about sixty versts in circumference: the largest island lies thirty versts from thence, and is about an hundred and fifty round: the smallest is about thirty versts from the latter, and is forty in circumference. These three islands contain several high rocky mountains. The number of inhabitants were computed to be about forty-two men, without reckoning women and children.
Voyage of _Andrean Tolstyk_ in the _St. Andrean_ and _Natalia_--Discovery of some New Islands called _Andreanoffskye Ostrova_--Description of six of those Islands.