' I02 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



Captain Beechey in 1826, on Chamisso Island, was perfectly sound 

 and fit for food when disinterred in 1848. It was disengaged with 

 much difficulty from the frozen subsoil, and even the iron hoops of 

 the cask were not rusted.' Dr. Goodridge appends to his paper 

 some remarks on the annual waste of the ice-cliffs, and says that the 

 bay is gradually filling up with the clay and soil which are precipi- 

 tated into the sea on the melting of the ice on which they are reposed. 



" Mr. Seemann reports the heads of porpoises and antlers of 

 reindeer were found on the beach, having been deposited there by 

 the natives. 



" Captain Kellett, in answer to some queries I addressed to him, 

 informed me that the ice-clififs were in many places as much as sixty 

 feet high, and of pure ice. He did not think that the ice extended 

 inland as far as the range of hills, though on digging at a distance 

 of a quarter of a mile from the edge of the cliff he found pure ice 

 under a covering of between three or four feet of soil. In no 

 instance were the fossils imbedded in the ice, but they generally lay 

 on its surface, the large tusks showing through the soil. Many 

 were gathered from the mud at the base of the cliffs, where they 

 were exposed to the wash of the tide. In digging within the Arctic 

 Circle to erect marks he always found the soil frozen at a depth of 

 two feet. — Such are the chief particulars that I collected from the 

 three officers quoted above. The naturalist who wishes to study the 

 subject more deeply will find several opinions discussed in Dr. Buck- 

 land's Appendix to Captain Beechey's Voyage, as already men- 

 tioned." 



[Report of the Cruise of the U. S. Revenue Steamer Corwin in the 

 Arctic Ocean in 1880. By Captain C. L. Hooper. Published in 1881, by 

 Treasury Department.] 



" Glacial Fonnatioiis and Fossils at Elephant Point 



"On the i6th (July, 1880), I visited Elephant Point, about 

 fifteen miles distant, on Eschscholtz Bay, near the mouth of the 

 Buckland River. This place is remarkable for a singular ice for- 

 mation, which Kotzebue described as ' a glacier covered with soil 

 six inches thick, producing the most luxuriant grass, and contain- 

 ing abundance of mammoth bones.' Captain Beechey, of the Royal 

 Navy, while cruising in the Arctic in 1826-27, claims to have fully 

 established the fact that Kotzebue was mistaken ; that what he 

 called a ' glacier ' was occasioned either by the water from the 

 thawing ice and snow tricklinsf down the surface of the earthv cliff 



