GEOLOGY. 309 



maunder knowing the different conclusions arrived at by those who 

 had seen the spot before, determined to make a thorough investigation 

 of the matter. The result has been, the confirmation of the original 

 view of Kotzebue, Eschscholtz, and their companion Chamisso, that 

 the foundations of these cliffs are truly ice. They have undergone 

 considerable alteration since the time when they were visited by 

 Kotzebue and Capt. Bcechey. M. Seeman, the naturalist of the expe- 

 dition, describes them as being from 40 to 90 feet high, and con- 

 sisting of three distinct layers, the lower one being ice, the middle one 

 clay containing fossil bones, and the upper one peat. The icy basis is 

 from 20 to 60 feet in height ; and Capt. Kellett states that on digging 

 into the soil at a distance of a quarter of a mile from the edge of the 

 cliff, he found pure ice at a depth of not more than 3 or 4 feet. The 

 data are at present insufficient for obtaining an idea of the extent of 

 this mass of ice ; but sufficient is known to afford interesting materials 

 for estimating the influence of such a formation on the conditions of 

 the earth's surface of which it forms a part. Eschscholtz Bay posses- 

 ses an additional interest, apart from the physical structure of its cliffs, 

 in the vast number of fossil bones found in this locality. These re- 

 mains, M. Seeman states, were in no instance found imbedded in the 

 ice ; but they generally lay upon the surface the huge tusks and 

 horns not unfrequently showing through the soil, whilst many were 

 gathered from the sand at the base of the cliffs where they were 

 exposed to the wash of the tide. The animals to which these remains 

 belong seemed to have formed part of that great mass of which so 

 many indications exist in extreme Northern latitudes. The discovery 

 of the entire carcass of a rhinoceros and of those of tAvo mammoths in 

 Arctic Siberia is a fact familiar to most persons, while inexhaustible, 

 deposites of organic remains are known to exist in the Kotelnoi, or 

 New Siberian Archipelago. The remains from Eschscholtz Bay have 

 not their soft parts so well preserved as many of the other specimens ; 

 but when dus? out of the soil in which thev are contained, they exhal- 

 ed "a strong and disagreeable odor of decomposing animal matter, 

 like that of a well-filled cemetery." 



The history of the creatures that have left these remains forms an 

 interesting problem. They belong to families which now inhabit 

 tropical and sub-tropical regions. Are we, then, to conclude that they 

 have been brought from warmer parts of the earth by some great 

 flood ? Their perfect state of preservation in some instances forbids 

 this conclusion, for they could not have been brought from tropical 

 regions preserved in ice. Can we suppose that the Arctic regions 

 were once warmer than now, and actually produced a vegetation 

 sufficient to support a vast creation of herbiverous animals such as we 

 now find entombed therein ? This is the conclusion to which we are 

 driven ; and without supposing that the temperature of these regions 

 was tropical, it was probably yet warm enough to encourage a vegetation 

 on which these creatures could live. By some catastrophe some 

 vast deluge, or wave of succession -we must suppose that they were 

 suddenly eugulphed on the shores of a sea wherein they had their pasture- 



