Itinerary 17 



evidence coming under our observation leads to the conclusion that 

 an extensive deposit of large Pleistocene mammal remains, repre- 

 sented principally b}' mammoth, bison, and horse, exists on the 

 headv^aters of the Old Crow River. 



In 1873 Rev. Robert ^McDonald presented a collection of remains 

 of Pleistocene mammals to the British Museum. The locality given 

 for them is the Upper Porcupine River and it is probable a more 

 definite locality for this collection may be the Old Crow River, a 

 tributary of the Porcupine. They have been enumerated by Lydek- 

 ker in the Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum, 

 Part II, pages 26. 27, 39, 78, 86, and 87 ; Part iv, page 204. Leith- 

 Adams also mentions three left lower molars of the mammoth from 

 this collection in his work on British Fossil Elephants, page 117. 



Our return to Fort Yukon, by the same route we had ascended 

 the river, was accomplished in eight days, and beyond one mishap, 

 in which our canoe rolled over in a shallow riffle, that resulted in 

 the loss of two sacks of bones that were not lashed in the canoe, 

 together with some photographic plates that became wet, was accom- 

 panied by no extreme inconvenience. 



The journey down the Yukon River was continued to examine 

 other localities reported as productive of Pleistocene mammal re- 

 mains. This necessitated travelling by steamer and small boat al- 

 ternately. A locality about thirty miles below Fort Hamlin on the 

 right bank of the Yukon was visited as was also Little Minook Creek 

 near the town of Rampart where elevated fluvial sediments con- 

 taining scattered Pleistocene mammal remains occur. From Fort 

 Gibbon where the Tanana River joins the Yukon the trip was con- 

 tinued by small boat to give opportunity of stopping at the " Pali- 

 sades " or so-called " Bone-Yard " about thirty-five miles below. 



This locality is described by Russell,' later by Spurr,' and also by 

 Collier." 



The escarpment called the Palisades is from one hundred and 

 fifty to two hundred feet high, composed mostly of fine, light colored, 

 unstratified silts. Back from the bluff is a level, densely wooded 

 table land, with swamps and ponds, bordered on all sides, except 

 that adjacent to the river, by low hills. The Palisades proper are 

 washed by the river and are bare precipitous bluffs of frozen silt. 



* Notes on the Surface Geology of Alaska. Bull. Geol Soc. Am., Vol. I, 

 1890, p. 122. 



^ Geology of the Yukon gold district. Eighteenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. 

 Survey, pt. 3, 1898, pp. 200-221. 



* Bull. No. 218, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1903, pp. 18 and 43. 



