10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 5 1 



the next area visited. Here members of the Tenth United States 

 Infantry had unearthed the almost complete jaws of a mammoth 

 shown the writer while at Fort Gibbon. On our visit, however, 

 nothing was found. 



"We had been told by Indians, who are in a position to be best 

 informed concerning these out-of-the-way places, that large bones 

 were to be found on the Yukakakat River, 1 a tributary entering the 

 Yukon some seventeen miles above the settlement of Louden. 



The mouth of the Yukakakat was reached on July 23. The ex- 

 ploration of the stream occupied the best part of a week, but was 

 without especial incident. The farthest point reached was estimated 

 to be ninety miles from the mouth, and although the current on the 

 upper reaches was swift, it was free from serious rapids and usually 

 had along its shores bars sufficiently broad to give good "tracking." 



The sluggish current of the first few miles of its meandering course 

 flows through a low alluvial flat, heavily wooded and very similar in 

 character to that part of the Xowitna. Farther up, however, the 

 course of the stream is flanked by low ranges of hills which grad- 

 ually converge and thus confine its wanderings to a shorter radius. 

 On either side of the stream back of the low hills mountains were 

 observed rising from one to two thousand feet in elevation. 



In many places the growth on the banks was very sparse, and 

 consisted principally of scattering clumps of alders, willow, and birch 

 interspersed with a few stunted spruce trees. Here and there back 

 from these low banks were many shallow lakes that furnish splendid 

 breeding grounds for the geese and ducks which abound there On 

 the uppermost part of the stream reached by us the shores were 

 more heavily timbered and there were long straight stretches of 

 river flowing between banks from ten to twelve feet in height, which 

 in most cases were covered with undergrowth and a tall luxuriant 

 growth of grass extending nearly down to the water's edge. At the 

 bends the undermining of the concave side presented features similar 

 to those observed on the Xowitna River. 



The first elevated silts of any importance observed were some 

 sixty miles upstream from the Yukon, where the river makes a 

 right-angled bend. At a comparatively recent date the river at this 

 point has changed its course, and at the time of our visit was not 

 cutting the bluffs (see pi. in). It could undermine them only at an 

 extremely high stage of water. These cliffs have almost perpendic- 

 ular faces and are from eighty to one hundred feet in height, com- 



1 This stream appears to be known in Alaska as the Yukakakat, although 

 Dall has indicated it on a map compiled by him in 1875 as the Soonkakat. 



