510 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



is advancing upon the land. At Point Barrow the characteristic 

 beach form is produced by the waves, for the summer season is 

 long enough nearly or quite to obliterate the traces of ice action. 

 Still there are places where gravel ridges will remain for several 

 years that have originally been heaped up by ice pressure.* 



But it is only in localities like that of Cape Isachsen, where 

 wave action seems to have been of limited effect for millenniums 

 past, that these pressure ridges have survived until the land has 

 had time to rise. It seems that it is only within recent times, 

 geologically speaking, that these islands have been rising, for the 

 elevated beaches consisting of gravel heaps formed by ice pres- 

 sure have not been seen by us more than forty or fifty feet above 

 sea level or more than about a mile inland. 



Now that the rising and sinking of the arctic islands has been 

 mentioned we may summarize here our observations on that sub- 

 ject. We did not notice in Victoria Island any clear evidence of 

 change of level. On the southwest coast of Banks Island are some 

 cliffs so undercut by the waves that clearly their force at present 

 is expended at least ten or fifteen feet lower than it once was. 

 The west coast of Banks Island is deeply embayed and there are 

 many "drowned valleys," showing a considerable sinking. But in 

 the same locality decaying driftwood lies so high up on the beach 

 and so far inland that it seems clear the land has recently risen 

 ten or fifteen feet. In other words, there was a period of sub- 

 sidence during which valleys cut by running streams were sub- 

 merged and filled with sea water, but the turn has come and in 

 recent times there has been a rise of ten or fifteen feet at least. 

 On the east coast of Melville Island we found the nearly complete 

 and unfossilized skeleton of a bowhead whale eight or ten feet 

 above sea level and a hundred and fift}"^ yards inland. This means 

 an elevation, for we know through observation of many stranded 

 whales that their skeletons always lodge not at the upper level of 

 wave action, as is the case with driftwood, but at the level of low 

 tide or even lower, where they are commonly buried by sand. 

 This skeleton was undoubtedly originally so buried at or below 

 the level of low tide. The land has since risen and wind and 

 other forces have carried the sand away. Though the skeleton is 

 unfossilized it is thousands of years old, for the same forces which 

 can preserve the flesh of mammoths so that it may be examined 

 to-day and is still flesh, can more easily preserve tree trunks and 



* For a photograph and description of one of these ridges, see "My Life 

 With the Eskimo," pp. 383-384. 



