FOSSIL REMAINS. 343 



It seems quite certain therefore that there must have been a 

 material change in the quantity of ice on the cliff in Esch- 

 scholtz Bay in the interval between the visits of Lieutenant 

 Kotzebue and Captain Beechey ; and if we suppose that, 

 during this interval, there was an extensive thawing of the icy 

 front that was seen by Kotzebue, but which existed not at the 

 time of Beechey's visit, we find in this hypothesis a solution of 

 the discrepancy between these officers ; since what to the first 

 would appear a solid iceberg, when it was glazed over with a 

 case of ice, would, after the melting of that ice, exhibit to the 

 latter a continuous cliff of frozen diluvial mud. Whilst the ice 

 prevailed all over the front of the cliff, any bones that had 

 fallen from it before the formation of this ice, and which lay 

 on the under cliffs or upon the shore, must, by an error almost 

 inevitable, have been presumed to fall from the imaginary 

 iceberg. 



This circumstance seems to suggest to us that it is worthy 

 of consideration whether or not there may have existed any 

 similar cause of error in the case of the celebrated carcass of 

 an elephant in Siberia, which is said to have fallen entire from 

 an iceberg in the cliffs near the Lena. The Tungusian, who 

 discovered this carcass suspended in what he called an iceberg, 

 may possibly have made no very accurate distinction between 

 a pure iceberg and a cliff of frozen mud. 



It is stated by Lieutenant Belcher, that at a spot he visited 

 on the S. E. shore of Eschscholtz Bay, on ascending what ap- 

 peared at first to be a solid hillock, he found a heap of loose 

 materials, unsafe to walk on, and having streams of liquid mud 

 oozing from it on all sides through coarse grass; that as the 

 melting subsoil of this hillock sinks gradually down, the incum- 

 bent peat subsides with it ; so that at no very distant period 

 the entire hillock will disappear. In other mud cliffs, also, he 

 observed similar streams of liquid mud, accompanied by a de- 

 pression of the surface Immediately above them. Thus, from 

 the month of June to October these cliffs are constantly thaw- 

 ing, and throwing down small avalanches of mud, which, be- 

 tween Cape Blossom and Cape Kruzenstern, are so numerous, 

 that you can scarce stand there an hour without witnessing the 



VOL. II. 2 A 



