352 VOYAGE TO THE 



CI ^ VP - the proposal was made while the baidars were assem- 

 •— v— ' bled round our boat, and was received with a shout 

 1826. of general applause. 



Blue beads, cutlery, tobacco, and buttons, were 

 the articles in request, and with which almost any 

 thing they had might have been purchased : for 

 these they sold their implements, ornaments, and 

 some very fine salmon ; also a small caiac very simi- 

 lar to those of Greenland and Hudson's Strait. 



While the duties of the ship were being forward- 

 ed under my first lieutenant, Mr. Peard, I took the 

 opportunity to visit the extraordinary ice-formation 

 in Escholtz Bay, mentioned by Kotzebue as being 

 " covered with a soil half a foot thick, producing 

 the most luxuriant grass," and containing an abund- 

 ance of mammoth bones. We sailed up the bay, 

 which was extremely shallow, and landed at a de- 

 serted village on a low sandy point, where Kotzebue 

 bivouacked when he visited the place, and to which 

 I afterwards gave the name of Elephant Point, from 

 the bones of that animal being found near it. 



The cliffs in which this singular formation was 

 discovered begin near this point, and extend west- 

 ward in a nearly straight line to a rocky cliff of pri- 

 mitive formation at the entrance of the bay, whence 

 the coast takes an abrupt turn to the southward. 

 The cliffs are from twenty to eighty feet in height ; 

 and rise inland to a rounded range of hills between 

 four and five hundred feet above the sea. In some 

 places they present a perpendicular front to the 

 northward, in others a slightly inclined surface ; and 

 are occasionally intersected by valleys and water- 

 courses generally overgrown with low bushes. Op- 

 posite each of these valleys, there is a projecting flat 



