34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



the Isanotsky Pass in the Aleutian Island^ whicli was heretofore marked in the 

 charts as navigable, is now impassable, the schooner Francis L. Steel having 

 been nearly wrecked on the sand-bars in attempting the passage on her voyage 

 up to Behring's Straits. 



CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION. 



After leaving the lava country near the mouth of the Toukon, the traveler, 

 on going to the northward, soon enters a large basin, showing blue sandstone 

 strata, probably belonging to the lower carboniferous era. The rocks contain 

 fine vegetable fossils apparently related most nearly to that era. Above the 

 carboniferous sandstone, and overlying it, there is a formation, the original 

 strata of which have been denuded and replaced by some tertiary strata con- 

 taining lignite or fossilized wood, but not in quantities to be of any economical 

 value. The rocks that were denuded belonged probably to the upper carbon- 

 iferous series, as in going up the Toukon there is a point found just below the 

 Koyoukuk Mountain where they are observed in position, and where they con- 

 tain true bituminous coal. A small vein of it crops out near Nulato, the greater 

 part of which, however, has likewise been denuded. At Clantilinten, one hund- 

 red and fifty miles below Nulato, on the Toukon, there is another small seam 

 of coal, discernible in the blue sandstone. 



TERTIARY FORMATION. 



South of the Alaska volcanic ridge of mountains, extending eastward so far 

 as known from observations, to Cook's Inlet, and westward so far as to include 

 part of the coast and Kodiak, Ounga, Ounalaska, and possibly other islands of 

 the Aleutian group, there are fossiliferous strata containing lignite, the geolog- 

 ical age of which is not yet determined with certainty — but it is probably 

 Eocene Tertiary. At all of the places named, coal has been reported. There 

 has been some " blowing " about valuable deposits, which is scarcely warranted 

 by the true facts. At Coal Harbor, Ounga Island, which was surveyed by 

 Mr. Dall, the coal was carefully examined, and additional information was 

 acquired from the Russians, all of which tended to prove the known deposits as 

 but poor in quality, and deficient in quantity. 



THE POST PLIOCENE AGE. 



All over the Azoic country to the north of the peninsula of Alaska, and the 

 principal ridge of mountains, there are scattered post Pliocene fossils. In 

 swamps and bogs, and alluvial deposits, there are frequent relics of the masto- 

 don, the extinct hairy elephant, the musk ox, etc.; and in some places there are 

 strata of post Pliocene marl containing fossil fresh-water shells, as at Fort Tou- 

 kon particularly. These animals continued to exist down to the end of post 

 Pliocene times, since which the contour and level of the country have not mate- 

 rially changed. 



The waters of the Tanana, or River of Mountains, had never before been dis- 

 turbed by the paddles of a white man, and away in the interior was a small 

 stream which the Indians would never approach on account of a superstition 

 concerning it. If they should shoot arrows at a certain hill there, the arrows 

 would disappear in tlie air, and great evils would come upon them. Into this 



