64 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



that the deposits represent large accumulations of snow in the river 

 valley, but not the remains of a glacier. Geikie,''" Penck/'' Daw- 

 son,'" and Dall " have expressed the same opinion for the ground 

 ice of Alaska, i. e.. that they are accumulations of snow protected 

 by layers of earth. 



However, Tolmatschow says, " I take the liberty here of saying 

 that I would not extend this conclusion to all the deposits of ice of 

 Siberia and North America as considered by Toll in his work. I 

 say only, that the properties of the ice from many places, described 

 by this and other scientists, corresponds entirely to the Beresowka 

 ice." 



In attempting to follow the progressive steps by which ice-beds 

 formed from either snow or water might become covered by a 

 thickness of fifty feet of structureless clay sediment, the process 

 seems entirely too rapid to be comprehended by present day ex- 

 perience and to be entirely incompatible with the facts. The depo- 

 sition of clay required a body of comparatively quiet water and in 

 the deposition of fifty feet of sediment it appears necessary to imply 

 at least that depth of water over any bed of ice that might have 

 existed before the clays were laid down. Also a considerable period 

 of time for such clay sedimentation to transpire. The formation 

 and continued existence of a bed of ice under water in this manner 

 has been well remarked by Buckland to impose conditions such as 

 to exclude the reasonable possibility of its occurrence. Such a 

 condition as outlined above, however, appears to be called for if we 

 accept Ball's supposition that the ice beds at Elephant Point are 

 interstratified. That the arrangement presented at this locality in 

 1880-81 vv^as simply due to a vertical displacement of fifty feet, 

 more or less, by which a portion of the upper ice-bed appeared at 

 a lower level is evident from Mr. Nelson's observation and section." 



The peculiar pungent odor that has been noticed by various ob- 

 servers in localities where mammoth and other mammal remains 

 have been found associated with Pleistocene clays and Recent ice 

 and peat beds, has been by some writers erroneously assigned to 

 decj^ving animal matter. This odor is nothing more than gaseous 

 emanations from decomposing vegetable matter. It is noticeable 

 wherever exposures occur that favor the rapid thawing and oxi- 



''^Great Ice Age, p. 665. 



""Deutsche geographische Blatter. Bd. IV, p. 174. 



'"Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., Vol. L, pp. 1-9. 



'' Seventeenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Survey, 1896, p. 860. 



"See Appendix, p. iii. 



