i6 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



yards of each other with all intergradations of physical charac- 

 teristics represented. All this goes to show that apparently there 

 is only one criterion upon which to base a classification of the ice 

 deposits of these northern regions, and this is, position. 



During the first week of our ascent of the Old Crow the river 

 steadily subsided. As the waters became lower widely scattered 

 parts of the skeletons of the large fossil mammals we were search- 

 ing for, were left exposed on the clay banks below high water 

 mark. In this way several of the large leg bones of the mammoth 

 together with specimens of its teeth and bones of horse and bison 

 were picked up. About one mile above the mouth of the first tribu- 

 tary coming into the Old Crow from the left we found the badly 

 mutilated skull of a mammoth. It showed every evidence of 

 rough treatment by the ice of one or more spring break-ups. The 

 tusks were absent and their sockets badly broken away, the teeth 

 were gone, and it was clearly evident that this skull had come from 

 a considerable distance upstream. We left it on the water's edge 

 imbedded in the tenacious gray clay. When we returned to it a 

 week later on our way down stream it was covered by six feet of 

 water. For after leaving that spot on our way upstream we daily 

 experienced heavy rains, frequently accompanied by thunder, that 

 appeared to originate in the mountains surrounding this basin and 

 give that particular area the whole benefit of rainfall. In conse- 

 quence the country became inundated, caused the river to rise very 

 rapidly, and also increased the current so as to make upstream 

 progress slower. Finally on July 23 an inventory showed 

 about six pounds of flour, a couple of handfuls of tea with some 

 partly dried deer meat not in too savory a state of preservation, to 

 be the remaining stock of provision. This with the fact that 

 we were about four hundred miles from the nearest settlement. Fort 

 Yukon, determined us to turn back. It was with much reluctance 

 we did so for nearly every mile of the last one hundred travelled 

 on the Old Crow River had yielded increasing evidence, in the 

 shape of a tooth, a horn core, or a bone lying on the banks below 

 high-water mark, of the existence of deposits containing considera- 

 ble remains of the skeletons of large Pleistocene mammals. Every 

 mile of the last one hundred was travelled with the expectation of 

 discovering a place of primary entombment of these remains. 

 Under the circumstances it became necessary to abandon further 

 exploration with the hope of returning another year to fully in- 

 vestigate this locality. It was on this river the remains of mammoth 

 were reported to be abundant, and as we have just pointed out, all the 



