EXPLORATION IN ALASKA IN I907 GILMORE 9 



"cache"' was made of all articles in the outfit not absolutely needed. 

 Many times, in order to get over the swift places, "tracking" was 

 resorted to, and a little later it was nearly all tracking and wading, as 

 we alternately crossed from bar to bar at the bends in the river. 

 Nearly evefy bar searched yielded something — either fragments or 

 one or more complete elements of skeletons representing the mam- 

 moth, horse, bison, and other extinct forms. 



The first of the older series of rocks encountered was some seventy 

 to seventy-five miles above the mouth, where the stream has cut the 

 end of a low-lying ridge on the right bank. This outcrop is com- 

 posed of a mass of badly shattered schistose rock. Some fifteen 

 miles farther up, the river again touches the end of a spur of this 

 same ridge, exposing rocks of a similar nature. 



Elevated beds of silt of perhaps fifty feet in height were observed 

 twice in the ascent, but appeared local in character, and no fossils 

 were found in them. 



The ridge paralleling the right bank extended along the river to 

 the most distant point reached by us and as far beyond as the eye 

 could reach. It rises above the level of the stream from three hun- 

 dred to five hundred feet, and is covered with a dense growth of 

 trees. 



The "Suletna," 1 the first important tributary, enters the Nowitna 

 from the west ninety miles above its mouth. 



The ascent of the stream was continued until July 16, when an 

 inventory of the remaining supplies showed only enough provisions 

 to last until we should reach the Yukon again. On this account we 

 were obliged to turn back. While the specimens found at the 

 farthest point reached were not more abundant or better pre- 

 served than those collected farther downstream, it was hoped we 

 could reach the very headwaters, to learn, if possible, the source of all 

 the scattered bones found along its course, and it was with reluc- 

 tance that we abandoned the search. 



The Yukon was reached on the 19th of July, and "Mouse Point, - ' 

 a small trading post, the same day. After a short stop here our 

 journey was continued to Kokrines, an Indian settlement where the 

 Northern Commercial Company maintains a trading post. Some 

 little time was spent here in overhauling our outfit, laying in supplies, 

 packing fossils for shipment, etc. 



An exposure of elevated silts on the right bank of the Yukon, 

 some three miles above Melozi, a United States telegraph station, was 



1 The name by which this tributary is known to the Indians and trappers of 

 this region. 



