626 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



specimen had been seen so late as 1854, the animal at that time seen 

 by the natives appears in the light of all testimony on the subject, to 

 have been a narwhal. Up to 1883 two skeletons, one in the Imperial 

 Museum of St. Petersburg, and one in the collection of the Imperial 

 Academy of Helsingfors, and two ribs in the British Museum, were all 

 the remains of the rytina preserved in scientific institutions. At that 

 date Dr. Stejneger visited Bering Island, 'influenced largely by the 

 hope of securing specimens of this extinct sea-cow for the U. S. National 

 Museum. This hope was fully realized, for in the course of a stay of 

 two years, a considerable series of more or less complete skulls was ob- 

 tained, besides many vertebrae, ribs, and other bones. These were 

 buried at various depths in the sand, and were discovered by probing 

 with an iron rod, rytina bones being readily distinguished by their 

 greater density from those of cetaceans, that are found in the same 

 locality. 



Many bones were found at so considerable a distance from the water's 

 edge as to suggest that the land had risen since the extinction of the 

 rytina, a probability that was changed to a certainty by the discovery 

 of a nearly complete skeleton far inland. 



This interesting find is thus recorded by Dr. Stejneger in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Geographical Society of Bremen : 



Toward noon it was reported to me that the skeleton of a Bea-cow had been found. 

 Conceive my agitation, and the haste with which the spades were seized. We had to 

 walk some distance, and when I reached the spot, I found the report confirmed. 

 From the bank of the brook which ran from the south several ribs protruded. The 

 brook had slowly eaten its way into the hillock of sand, and thus by degrees exposed 

 and washed away the bones. When we began to dig, we saw at once that it was the 

 tail end which was missing. The distance from the sea was about 500 feet, and the 

 skeleton lay about 10 to 12 feet above high-water mark. It was imbedded in a hil- 

 lock of sand, which belonged to one of the inner rows of dunes. The hillock was 

 about 12 feet high, and the skeleton, which was lying upon its back with the head 

 toward the west, was situated at about an equal distance from the base and the grass 

 covered upper surface of the hill. The sand was wet and fine, of the same kind which 

 is still thrown up daily by the sea at the not far distant beach and showed alternat- 

 ing brown and blue layers. Near the bones the sand sometimes was blackish, iridescent, 

 which was due to the fact that the bones were in a very advanced state of decompo- 

 sition. This became evident to me after the first few strokes of the spade. Indeed, 

 the skeleton as such was worthless. The separate bones had not cohesion enough to 

 allow of their being lifted without injury, their own weight being too heavy. Even 

 the ribs, which otherwise are of ivory-like consistency and density, had rotted 

 throughout, and some of the bones were so soft that they felt like "green butter 

 soap " to the touch. In order, however, to ascertain all the circumstances precisely, 

 I continued the excavation until all the fragments had been brought to light. Alto- 

 gether there were found fourteen dorsal vertebrae with the ribs belonging to them, 

 the cervical vertebra, the skull, the breast bone, two shoulder bones, two upper arm 

 bones, but only one forearm. All the bones were in their natural position, with the 

 exception of the breastbone, which lay outside of the skeleton, near the right fore- 

 limb, while the left fore-limb, consisting only of shoulder blade and humerus, lay 

 inside the thorax. Although none of the bones were of any use to us, nevertheless I 

 did not look upon our labor as lost, since they enabled me to determine, in the first 

 place, the conditions under which many of these skeletons had been destroyed, and 

 secondly that the island had risen, since these remnants had been buried under the 

 sand of the former shore. 



