EXPLORATION IN ALASKA IN I9O/ — GILMORE IJ 



The preservation of the horn sheaths, as in the cases of the bison 

 skulls, and the completeness of many of the skulls and other elements 

 show they have not been subjected to the rough usage incident to 

 their removal from one place to another ; nor after death could 

 they have long lain on top of the ground exposed to the vicissitudes 

 of the elements. The external horn would in such case be the first 

 to disappear, as all know who have visited our western plains and 

 have noted the almost total disappearance of the horn sheaths from 

 the buffalo skulls scattered about. Their destruction, even in a dry 

 climate, has been accomplished in a comparatively few years. 



Little Minook Creek Junior 



This small stream enters Big Minook Creek from the right some 

 six miles distant from the town of Rampart. Here, as in the 

 Klondike region, the fossils occur in the lower part of the muck, 

 which covers everything from two to twenty-five feet in depth. 

 Specimens would be uncovered here only through the agency of 

 mining, as the volume of water in the creek is not sufficient to cut 

 away the banks. 



While sinking a shaft on claim Xo. 21, operated by Messrs. 

 Bowen and Coole, a skull of Bison crassicornis (No. 5727. U. S. 

 National Museum) associated with bones of Elephas was taken out 

 twenty feet below the surface. 



Some years previous to our visit, we were told, the tusks of a 

 large "mastodon" (mammoth) were found in a shaft sunk on a 

 claim above No. 21. 



Little Minook Creek 



This creek is also a tributary of Big Minook Creek, and here as 

 in other localities, the fossils found occur in the lower layers of the 

 muck. 



In the vertebrate fossil collection of the U. S. National Museum 

 is a portion of the skull of Bison alleni (No. 2383, see plate xi) 

 from this locality having the entire horn sheaths preserved. 



Mr. J. B. Duncan, of Rampart, presented to the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, through the writer, a skull of Bison crassicornis (No. 5726. 

 U. S. National Museum, see plate x) from one of the claims on 1 1 1 i s 

 creek, and Mr. C. B. Allen, of the same place, presented the Institu- 

 tion with the calcaneum of Blephas from claim No. 1. 



Palisades 



The Palisades, or ''Bone Yard," on the left bank of the Yukon, 

 thirty-five miles below Fort Gibbon (see pi. v. fig. 1), has long been 

 ■2\ 



