A GEOLOGICAL ROMANCE. 229 



" an old bone yard." In digging other wells in this vicinity mammal 

 bones have been taken up by the settlers from about the same horizon. 

 It is to be regretted that, with one exception, none of these fossils 

 have been preserved for study, for it is likely that they were the re- 

 mains of animals which were killed in the dust shower. 



In the absence of fossils definitely known to be connected with 

 the ash, its exact age seems yet uncertain. In McPherson County 

 it is underlaid by clay, gravel, and sand, which contain remains of 

 the horse, of a megalonyx, and of bivalve mollusks of modern aspect. 

 In the bluffs of the Missouri River near Omaha pockets of a similar 

 ash rest on glacial clay under the loess. At the latter place it must 

 belong to the Pleistocene age, and at the former it can not be older 

 than the late Pleiocene. These two deposits may not belong to the 

 same shower, but it appears, at any rate, that the volcanic disturb- 

 ances which produced them occurred near the beginning of the 

 Pleistocene age. 



In comparison with the slow and even tenor of the routine of 

 geological history, the event here sketched appears so unique and so 

 striking that it may well be called a geological romance. Modern sci- 

 ence has taught us that the geological forces are slow and largely uni- 

 form in their work, and that most of the earth's features must be ex- 

 plained without taking recourse to theories involving any violent 

 revolutions or general terrestrial cataclysms. While the making of 

 this dust is not any real exception to the law of uniformity, we are 

 here reminded that Nature is quite independent in her ways, and that 

 even in her sameness there is room for considerable diversity. 



Mr. William Ogilvie, of the Topographical Survey of Canada, esti- 

 mates that there are more than 3,200 miles of fair navigation in the system 

 of the Yukon Eiver, of which Canada owns nearly forty-two per cent. A 

 remarkable feature of the river, with its Lewes branch, is that it drains the 

 Peninsula of Alaska and nearly cuts it in two, starting as it does less than 

 fourteen miles, '"as the crow flies," from the waters of the Pacific Ocean, at 

 the extreme head of the Lewes braneh, whence it flows 2.100 miles into the 

 same ocean, or Bering Sea, which is a part of it. The drainage basin of the 

 river occupies about 388,000 square "miles, of which Canada owns 149,000 

 square miles, or nearly half, but that half is claimed to be the most impor- 

 tant. As for the origin of the name Yukon, the Indians along the middle 

 stretches of the river all speak the same language, and call the river the 

 Yukonah: in English, "the great river" or "the river." The Canadian 

 Indians in the vicinity of Forty Mile call it '•Thetuh." a name of which 

 Mr. Ogilvie could not learn the meaning. The correct Indian name of the 

 Klondike is Troandik, meaning Hammer Creek, and refers to the barriers 

 the Indians used to erect across the mouth of the stream to catch salmon, 

 by hammering sticks into the ground. 



