Ice-beds ox Eschscholtz Bay 107 



The above account has been reprinted by Mr. Dall in the follow- 

 ing: Bulletin of the U. S. Geol. Survey No. 84, 1892, pp. 261-263, 

 pi. III. 



" Respecting the strong, peculiar odor it is remarked in a foot- 

 note on page 262. ' This phenomenon was observed by Kotzebue, 

 Beechey, and the Herald party, and lends further probability to the 

 view that the animals were mired in the clay and thus met their 

 death. Since, if the clay contained merely the accumulated bones 

 of animals which had died and decayed on the surface of the 

 ground, it is unlikely that so much animal matter would have been 

 hermetically sealed in the clay and kept on ice to offend the nostrils 

 of later visitors. On the other hand, if the ice had not been pres- 

 ent and the temperature not kept so low it is unlikely, even in the 

 clay, if animal matter could have been preserved for such an enor- 

 mous, period of time in a condition to give out so ammoniacal a 

 stench. All the circumstances point toward the view that the ice 

 preceded and subsequently co-existed with animals whose remains 

 are now in its vicinity.' " 



On page 263 Dall continues : " From the character of some of 

 the bad-smelling deposit which was brought home and appeared to 

 be exclusively composed of vegetable fiber finely comminuted, no 

 doubt is felt that it represents dung of the mammoth or some other 

 herbivorous animal which had been preserved in pockets on the 

 surface of the ice where it was probably dropped, and by its dark 

 color attracting the rays of the sun had sunk in, as is usual with 

 dark objects dropped on an exposed ice surface." 



The above discussion is repeated in a Report on Coal and Lignite 

 of Alaska, by W. H. Dall, 17th Ann. Rep. of U. S. Geol. Survey, 

 1896, pp. 850-860. It is also referred to by Geikie ^ and Wright." 



[Cruise of the Revenue Steamer Corwin in the Arctic Ocean in 1881. 

 Treasury Department Document No. 429. Washington, 1883.] 



Muir, page 50, under head of Kotzebue Sound, remarks: 

 " A striking result of the airing and draining of the boggy tundra 

 soil is shown on the ice-bluffs around Eschscholtz Bay, where it 

 has been undermined by the melting of the ice on which it rests. 

 In falling down the face of the ice-wall it is well shaken and rolled 

 before it again comes to rest on terraced or gently sloping portions 

 of the wall. The original vegetation of the tundra is thus de- 



* The Great Ice Age, p. 664. 



* Ice Age in North America, p. 33. 



