THE GOLD SANDS OF CAPE NOME. 



637 



low growth of flowering herbaceous phints, grass, and moss, with 

 a somewhat scantier admixture of the dwarf birch, arctic willow, 

 and erowberry. The surface is pre-eminently swampy during the 

 warmer periods of the year, gnd walking over it means either wad- 

 ing through the water or risking continuous jumps to and from the 

 individual clumps of matted grass and moss — the so-called " nig- 

 ger-heads." The greater part of the tundra seems to rest on 

 gravel and sand — doubtless of both marine and fluviatile origin 

 — and ordinarily the frozen stratum is already reached at a 



A >i'ativk 'ji iiiL Laxu of 2so.me. 



depth of two or three feet, sometimes less. In early October 

 of the past year it was still too " open " to permit of easy walk- 

 ing over it, but in quite early hours of the morning the sur- 

 face afforded fair lodg-ment to moderate weights. Fragmentary 

 parts of the skeleton of the mammoth have been found here and 

 there, even loose on the top grass, but where found in such situa- 

 tions it is by no means certain that they had not been redeposited 

 by high tidal wash. A large fragment of thigh bone, with shoulder 

 blade, which I found about" an eighth of a mile inland and perhaps 



