22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 5 1 



Under the influence of the summer sun the blocks were gradually 

 disintegrating. Large pieces were continually falling as thawing 

 progressed, and all along the bases of the face and around the blocks 

 were small piles of talus of the mucky material. 



The same pungent, disagreeable odor of decaying organic matter 

 was noticed here as in the deposits of Bonanza and Minook creeks. 

 The stench was so strong it could be easily detected on the river a 

 considerable distance away. In many places on the wet muck banks 

 a rusty red fungus-like plant grew in extensive patches. 



The writer does not wish to be understood that the observations 

 recorded here apply to all ice deposits, but as a local phase it may 

 explain the occurrence of many so-called "ice-beds." It may also 

 help to explain the position of the mammoth found frozen in the 

 cliff along the Berezovka River in Siberia in 1901. From the posi- 

 tion in which the carcass was found it would appear as though he 

 had fallen into a crevasse from which there was no escape. The 

 description 1 of the locality is not so unlike the conditions observed 

 here. 



Nowitna River 



The exploration of this stream added but little information con- 

 cerning the occurrence or derivation of the fossils found along its 

 course. 



After the first day of our ascent of this stream nearly every bar 

 yielded some fossil evidence, either in the shape of a tooth, limb 

 bone, vertebra, or scattered fragments. The specimens found were 

 in various stages of preservation ; many broken, others entire, some 

 badly water-worn, and a few as perfect as the day they performed 

 their functions in the skeleton itself. Some elements, which on ac- 

 count of their frail nature should by the very character of their 

 structure have been broken and abraded, were found complete. 



In examining the bars we soon came to know that the up-river 

 ends, where the materials composing them were coarsest, was the 

 most favorable part for finding the scattered bones. The remains 

 without exception were all found below the high-water level of the 

 flood stages of the river, and were without question brought down 

 from some source or sources of deposition, either by the water itself 

 or by floating ice. 



A close examination was made of the low-cut banks and elevated 

 silts, but not in a single instance were fossils actually found in place. 



The conditions on this stream differed somewhat from those found 



1 Herz, O. F. : Frozen Mammoth in Siberia. Ann. Rept. Smithsonian Inst., 

 1903- PP- 611-625. 



