Land Ice and the Mammoth 63 



mammoth are of snow origin or occur interstratified with the Pleis- 

 tocene silts are based on misinterpretations of the facts as they exist. 

 The erroneous conclusions drawn have passed down in literature 

 and become so firmly fixed in the minds of some that it will no doubt 

 take time to shake their belief. The evidence afforded by the ex- 

 posures on Eschscholtz Bay is insufficient to support a claim that 

 any of the ice-beds we know of in Alaska, excluding glaciers, are 

 of Pleistocene age or existed before the mammoth became extinct. 



The latest supporter of the snow-ice supposition — Tolmatschow — 

 gives what he calls a " schematic representation " of the formation 

 of the Beresowka ice from snow as follows : " The large lake 

 through which the Beresowka flowed was filled with silt through 

 which the river now cuts its bed. In winter the whole basin was 

 covered with a thick bed of snow, which in summer disappeared 

 except in those parts which are protected by a layer of loam. For 

 the thinnest layer of such deposits, whether coming from the over- 

 flow of the river, or from the water melting from the mountains, 

 affords a good protection from the summer sun. In our climate 

 (Russia) the snow remains under such conditions up to the middle 

 of summer, it will therefore remain more easily in northern Siberia. 

 In certain cases the snow can remain until winter without any pro- 

 tection, i. e., when it accumulates in great quantities, and this can 

 happen easily in such basins, where not only the fallen snow accu- 

 mulates but also that blown from the nearby mountains. After 

 short summers long winters come again and again. 



" These beds increase, come into contact, melt together, and in 



a long series of years form a thick cover of snow For this 



explanation we need not make any supposition about oscillation of 

 climate, the age of ice, etc., and we may very well suppose that the 

 process is also going on in Siberia now.*^ There is no doubt, that 

 under the present day .conditions of the climate of northern Siberia 

 ice as it has been found on the Beresowka can remain undisturbed 

 for thousands of years if we only exclude the action of its being 

 washed away by the river." 



From his various suppositions about the formation of the Bere- 

 sowka ice Tolmatschow draws the same conclusions as before, i. e., 



" One of the weak points of the snow origin of ice is just this : Why do we 

 not find the process transpiring today? Also, why is the elevated ice only 

 found associated with the Pleistocene lacustrine silts? Why not at varying 

 levels, and resting upon surfaces of different geological formations, etc. 

 The snow ice phenomena we do find today are altogether different from those 

 ice deposits associated with the elevated Pleistocene silts. 



