344 APPENDIX. 



downfall of some portion of the thawing cliffs. Hence origi- 

 nates a succession of ravines and gullies, which do not run far in- 

 land, and afford no sections, being covered with the debris of 

 the superficial peat that falls into them. Small streams of 

 muddy water, of the consistence of cream, ooze from the sides 

 of these ravines, the water being supplied by the melting of 

 the particles of ice which pervade the substance of the frozen 

 mud and peat. 



There remain, then, three important points, on which all 

 the English officers concur in the same opinion: 1st, That the 

 bones and tusks of elephants at Eschscholtz Bay are not de- 

 rived from the superficial peat ; 2dly, That they are not de- 

 rived from any masses of pure ice; 3dly, That, although col- 

 lected chiefly on the shore at the base of the falling cliff, they 

 are derived only from the mud and sand of which this cliff is 

 composed. 



The occurrence of cliffs composed of diluvial mud is by no 

 means peculiar to the south shore of Eschscholtz Bay. It will 

 be seen by reference to the map (plate I. Geology), that they 

 are more extensive, but at a less elevation along the north 

 shore of this same bay, and also on the south-west of it, at 

 Shallow Inlet, in Spafarief Bay. Indeed, in following the 

 line of coast north-eastwards, from the Arctic Circle, near 

 Beering's Strait, to lat. 71o N., wherever the coast is low, 

 there is a long succession of cliffs of mud, in the following 

 order : 1. Schischmareff Inlet. 2. Bay of Good Hope, on the 

 south of Kotzebue's Sound. 3. Spafarief Bay, at the south- 

 east extremity of Kotzebue's Sound. 4. Elephant Point, in 

 Eschscholtz Bay. 5. At the mouth of the Buckland River, at 

 the head of Eschscholtz Bay. 6. The north coast of Esch- 

 scholtz Bay. 7. Cape Blossom. 8. Point Hope. 9. From 

 Cape Beaufort to twenty miles east of Icy Cape. 10. Lunar 

 Station, near lat. 71o. — At the base of the mud cliff, fifteen 

 feet high, in the Bay of Good Hope, a small piece of a tusk of 

 an elephant was found upon the shore. At Shallow Inlet, the 

 mud cliff was fifteen feet high, without any facings of ice, or 

 appearance of bones; yet there was the same smell at low 

 water as in the cliffs near Elephant Point, that abound so 



