Ice-beds on Eschscholtz Bay 99 



consolidated by the percolation and freezing of water, floats away 

 in form of an iceberg. In other situations the snow-cliffs remain 

 for a series of years, with occasional augmentation marked by cor- 

 responding dirt-bands, and disappear only towards the close of a 

 cycle of warm summers. In valleys haying a northern exposure and 

 sheltered by high hills from the sun's rays, the age of the snow may 

 be considerable ; but it is proper to say that though aged glaciers of 

 this description do exist on the shores of Spitzbergen and Greenland, 

 they are of very rare occurrence indeed on the continental coast of 

 America. The ice-cliff of Eschscholtz Bay may have had an origin 

 similar to that of the Greenland icebergs, and have been coated with 

 soil by a single or by successive operations. I find it difficult, how- 

 ever, to account for the introduction of the fossil remains in such 

 quantity, and can offer to the reader no conjecture on that point 

 that is satisfactory even to myself. The excellent state of preser- 

 vation of many of the bones, the recent decay of animal matter 

 shown by the existing odor, quantities of hair found in contact with 

 a mammoth's skull, the occurrence of the outer sheaths of bison 

 horns, and the finding of vertebras of bovine animals lying in their 

 proper order of sequence, render it probable that entire carcases were 

 there deposited and that congealation followed close upon their 

 entombment. A gradual improvement of climate in modern times 

 would appear to be necessary to account for the decay of the cliffs 

 now in progress and the exposure of the bones. The shallowness 

 of the water in Eschscholtz Bay, its narrowness, and its shelter from 

 seaward pressure by Choris Peninsula and Chamisso Island, preclude 

 the notion of icebergs coming with their cargoes from a distance 

 having been forced up on the beach at that place. Neither is it more 

 likely that the bones and diluvial matters were deposited in the 

 estuary of Buckland's River and subsequently elevated by one of the 

 earth waves by which geologists solve many of their difficulties, for 

 ice could not subsist long as a flooring of warmer water. In short, 

 further observations are still needed to form the foundations of a 

 plausible theory. 



" Dr. Goodridge describes the several cliffs in succession with 

 much detail, beginning with that next Elephant Point and proceed- 

 ing to the westward. His paper, though interesting throughout, is 

 too long for transcription entire, and I shall therefore merely abstract 

 the most material parts. He commences by stating that the unusu- 

 ally mild season had produced great landslides and exposed the 

 structure of the several eminences forming the cliffs more extensively 

 than in the year in which Captain Beechey visited them. Elephant 



