CHAPTER XIV. 



MORSE AND MAHLEMOOT. 



The Monotonous Desolation of the Alaskan Arctic Coast. — Dreary Expanse of 

 Low Moorlands. — Diversified hy Saddle-backed Hills of Gray and Bronze 

 Tints. — The Coal of Cape Beaufort in the Arctic. — A Narrow Vein. — 

 Pure Carboniferous Formation. — Doubtful if these Alaskan " Black Dia- 

 monds" can be Successfully Used. — Icy Cape, a Sand- and Gravel-.spit. — 

 Remarkable Land-locked Lagoons on the Beach.— The Arctic Innuits.- — 

 Point Barrow, Our Extreme Northern Land, a Low Gravel-spit. — The But- 

 tercup and the Dandelion Bloom here, however, as at Home. — Back to 

 Bering Sea. — The Interesting Island and Natives of St. Lawrence. — Tlie 

 Sea-horse. — Its Uncouth Form and Clumsy Life. — Its Huge Bulk and Impo- 

 tency on Land. — Lives entirely by Clam-digging. — Rank Flavor of its Flesh. 

 — The Walrus is to the Innuit just as the Cocoa-palm is to the South Sea 

 Islander. — Hunting the Morse. — The Jagged, Straggling Island of St. 

 Matthew. — The Polar Bears' Carnival. — Hundreds of them here. — Their 

 Fear of Man. — " Over the Hills and Far Away," whenever Approached. — 

 Completion of the Alaskan Circuit. 



An Innuit village is in plain sight on the low shores of Cape Krooz- 

 enstern, which forms a northern pier-head of Kotzebue Sound, and 

 its inhabitants greet your vessel as it passes out and up the coast with 

 the usual dress-parade — climbing upon the summits of their winter 

 houses, and by running in light-hearted mirth along the beach. 

 A most dreary expanse of low moorland borders the coast as the lit- 

 tle schooner reviews it, swiftly heeling on her course to the north. 

 Not until the bluifs of Cajje Thompson are in sight does a note- 

 worthy landmark occur. This is an abrupt headland capped by 

 carboniferovis limestone full of fossils, shells, corals and the like, 

 which are peculiar to that age. It is also traversed by veins of a 

 blackish chert varying in thickness from six inches to three feet or 

 more, causing a decided network tracery to appear very plainly on 

 its gray-white face. Half-way down from the top, the limestone is 

 succeeded by blue, black, and gray argillaceous shades, the colors 

 of which alternate in layers of horizontal strata, six or eight feet in 



