CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 



79 



full and bright, and the air so warm and pleasant that it seemed hard to realize that we were still 

 north of Bering Straits. The dry-bulb thermometer at 10 p. in. stood at 47°, and the sea water at 

 49°. This place cannot always boast such flue weather at this season. We left here on the same 

 date the year before, and winter had already set in; the entire country seemed buried beneath 

 a snow-bank, while heavy gales were of daily occurrence. At meridian of the 7th we steamed 

 over to Elephant Point, and came to anchor off the remarkable ice formation for which that place 



PUFFIN ISLAND, KOTZEBUE SOUND. 



is celebrated. During the afternoon, accompanied by Messrs. Muir and Nelson, I went on shore 

 to make an examination of the ice cliff. In my report of the cruise of the Corwin in 1880, I made 

 the following mention of this phenomenon: 



I visited Elephant Point, about 15 miles distant, on Esehscholtz Bay, near the mouth of the Bnekland River. 

 Tin's place is remarkable for a singular ice formation, which Kotzebue described as glacier covered with soil 6 inches 

 thick, producing the most luxuriant grass, and containing abundance of mammoth bones. Captain Beechey, of the 

 Royal Navy, while cruising in tin- Arctic, in lS26-':>~, claims to have fully established the fact that Kotzebue was mis- 

 taken ; that what he called a glacier was occasioned either by the water from the thawing ice aud snow trickling down 

 the surface of the earthy cliff from above, or by the snow being banked up against the cliff in winter and afterwards 

 converted into ice by alternate thawing and freezing, producing the appearance which deceived the Russians. 



The cliffs in which the singular formation is found begin half a mile from the eastern extremity of Elephant 

 Point and extend west waul, nearly in a direct line, about 5 miles. They are from 40 to 150 feet in height, and rise in- 

 land to rounded hills from '-'00 to 300 feet high. The eastern part, where the ice formation is found, is nearly perpen- 

 dicular for about, one mile; from thence to the western extremity it is slightly inclined, and intersected by small 

 valleys and streams of water. I examined the ice, and, although not fully convinced that Beechey has given the true 

 explanation of it, I do not think it is a glacial formation. In several places where the water had run over the face 

 of the cliff in small streams from the melting snow above, I found holes melted, at least :'.0 feet in depth, showing 

 solid walls of clear ice. I also ascended the cliff aud dug down from the top in several places, and each time came 

 to solid ice, after digging through frozen earth for a few feet. I searched the face of the cliff for fossil remains but 

 found none, either in the ice or in the soil above it. I was more fortunate, however, on the beach below after the tide 

 fell. There I found a large number of mammoth bones and tusks, and some smaller bones, belonging, probably, to the 

 aurochs, or musk ox. 



ELEPHANT POINT, KOTZEBUE SOUND. 



We spent several days in the vicinity of Elephant Point examining this and smaller ice forma- 

 tions which were discovered by our exploring parties from day to day; and although it is not 

 claimed that all doubt is set at rest ou this subject, we can safely assert that the large quantity of 

 ice kuowu to be here precludes the possibility of Beechey's explanation being the true one. Several 

 hundred feet back from the edge of the cliff, at a place where a cave had occurred, caused by a 

 small stream of running water, we found ice clear and solid. Ice appears in the face of the cliff 



