I04 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



in the character of the banks. They became lower and the rise 

 inland was less. From reddish volcanic rock they changed to a 

 grayish clay, containing much vegetable matter, which, in some 

 places, was in strata in the clay, and in others indiscriminately 

 mixed with it. Near the beginning of these clay banks, where they 

 were quite low, not rising over twenty feet above the shore, we 

 noticed one layer of sphagnum (bog moss) containing marl of 

 fresh-water shells, belonging to the genera Pisidium, Valvata, etc. 

 This layer was about six inches thick. The clay was of a very 

 tough consistency, and, though wet, did not stick to or yield much 

 under the feet. The sea breaks against the foot of these banks and 

 undermines them, causing them to fall down, and the rough, irregu- 

 lar talus that results is mingled with turf and bushes from the sur- 

 face above. A little farther on a perpendicular surface of ice was 

 .noticed in the face of the bank. It appeared to be solid and free 

 from mixture of soil, except on the outside. The banks continued 

 to increase slowly but regularly in height as we passed eastward. 

 A little farther on another ice-face presented itself on a larger scale. 

 This continues about two miles and a half to Elephant Point, where 

 the high land turns abruptly to the south and west, and we fol- 

 lowed it no farther. The point itself is boggy and low, and is con- 

 tinued from the foot gf the high land, perhaps half a mile to the 

 eastward, forming the northwest headland to a shallow bay of 

 considerable extent. 



" To return to the ' clififs ' : these for a considerable distance were 

 double ; that is, there was an ice-face exposed near the beach with 

 a small talus in front of it, and covered with a coating of soil two 

 or three feet thick, on which luxuriant vegetation was growing. 

 All this might be thirty feet in height. On climbing to the brow 

 of this bank, the rise from that brow proved to be broken, hum- 

 mocky and full of crevices and holes ; in fact, a second talus on a 

 larger scale, ascending to the foot of a second ice-face, above which 

 was a layer of soil one to three feet thick covered with herbage. 



" The brow of this second bluff we estimated at eighty feet or 

 more above the sea. Thence the land rose slowly and gradually 

 to a rounded ridge, reaching the height of three or four hundred 

 feet only, at a distance of several miles from the sea, with its axis 

 in a north-and-south direction, a low valley west from it, the shal- 

 low bay at Elephant Point east from it, and its northern end abut- 

 ting in the cliffs above described on the southern shore of Esch- 

 scholtz Bay. There were no mountains or other high land about 

 this ridge in any direction, all the surface around was lower than 

 the ridffe itself. 



