1827. 



PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 269 



The southern side of Port Clarence is a low diluvial chap. 

 formation, covered with grass, and intersected hy nar- ^ ^^' 

 row channels and lakes ; it projects from a range of Sept. 

 cliffs which appear to have been once upon the coast, 

 and sweeping round, terminates in a low shingly point 

 (Point Spencer). In one place this point is so nar- 

 row and low, that in a heavy gale of wind, the sea 

 must almost inundate it ; to the northward, however, 

 it becomes wider and higher, and, by the remains of 

 some yourts upon it, has at one time been the resi- 

 dence of Esquimaux. Like the land just described, it 

 is intersected with lakes, some of which rise and fall 

 with the tide, and is covered, though scantily, with 

 a coarse grass, elymus, among which we found a 

 species of artemesia, probably new. Near Point Spen- 

 cer the beach has been forced up by some extraordi- 

 nary pressure into ridges, of which the outer one, ten 

 or twelve feet above the sea, is the highest. Upon 

 and about these ridges there is a great quanty of drift 

 timber, but more on the inner side of the point than 

 the outer. Some has been deposited upon the point 

 before the ridges of sand were formed, and is now 

 mouldering away with the effect of time, while other 

 logs are less decayed, and that which is lodged on the 

 outer part is in good preservation, and serves the 

 natives for bows and fishing staves. 



We saw several reindeer upon the hilly ground ; in 

 the lakes, wild ducks : and upon the low point of the 

 inner harbour, golden plover, and sanderlings, and a 

 gull very much resembling the larus sabini. 



The survey of these capacious harbours occupied us 

 until the 5th, when we had completed nearly all that 

 was necessary, and the weather set in with such seve- 

 rity that I was anxious to get back to Kotzebue 



