Aulon Island

Left to Right: Aulone Island, Finger Rock, Arch Rock and Sugar Loaf, Farallon Islands
Photograph by Carleton Watkins, 1868-1869

The word aulon appears in a March 1872 article written by Capt. Charles Melville Scammon (1825-1911) in Overland Monthly, and is used in reference to the marine mollusk abalone:

“... Beyond the western outskirts may be seen two hamlets of fishermen, who are the antipodes in nationality, as well as in their aquatic pursuits; one party being the wiry, venturesome Portuguese, who pursue every species of the leviathan cetaceans, and the other timid Chinese, who gather aulons, and fish for sharks and other varieties of the finny tribe which are rejected by the more civilized, yet relished as delicacies by Mongolians.” [Scammon, C. M. Pacific Sea-Coast Views, No. III, 8:3 (245-252), March 1872.]