29-1 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



in the plate prefixed to Seemann's Botany of the ReraWs voyage. 

 Captain Smith's examination showed beyond question, that the ice- 

 stratum of thirty or forty feet in thickness occurs in a depression 

 amongst some very low and rolling hills, and is composed of solid 

 and nearly pure ice. It is surmounted by a stratum of blue clay 

 about four feet in thickness, covered with a thin layer of vegetable 

 matter, in which moss, willows and Vacoinium bushes were growing. 

 There are no rocks in the immediate vicinity from which the clay 

 might have been derived by decomposition, and the very low and 

 rolling character of the land in the vicinity, chiefly composed of 

 basaltic rocks covered with soil, precluded the idea of a glacier 

 having existed in the vicinity, and rendered it improbable. that the 

 locality could have been the estuary of any considerable stream. 



In the stratum of clay the fossils are found, and here only, except 

 where by the wearing away of the bank they have fallen upon the 

 beach. The ice is therefore older than the latest tertiary in which 

 these remains occur. 



The formation of these strata remains a mystery. Mr. Dall, 

 in his work on Alaska, had suggested a hypothesis which might 

 have accounted for it ; but in the light of these later investigations 

 he felt compelled to withdraw it as untenable. 



Mr. Bradley suggested that the region might have been below 

 the level of the sea, and the remains have been washed into it by 

 the action of some river in the vicinity, which, at the same time, 

 covered the pre-existing ice with clay ; but Mr. Dall thought that 

 the topography of the vicinity, and the fact that no marine fossils 

 were found associated with the other remains, rendered this im- 

 probable. 



Regular Meeting, December 2nd, 1872. 

 President in the Chair. 



Thirty members present. 



Henry F. Williams, J. D. Pierson, .John M. Willey, M. D., 

 Barrington Gethen, Richard Gird and Richard L. Ogdeu were 

 elected resident members. 



