EVOLUTION OF ELEPHANTS 349 



safely taken as a proof that these islands were connected 

 with the mainland during the period in which the mammoth 

 wandered through Alaska, or whether the bones and tusks 

 that have been found were washed up by the ocean after 

 having been borne to the sea by the mainland rivers, is a 

 question not easily to be decided. Indeed, it has been re- 

 garded as probable that the Pribilov Islands are of very 

 recent geologic formation and did not exist in the time of 

 the Alaskan mammoth.* 



As regards the Alaskan mammoth, Maddern states that 

 the lowest horizon in which remains are found here are the 

 lacustrine facies of the "Yukon silts" or the "Kowak 

 clays," and he considers the peculiar ice phenomena of 

 Eschscholtz Bay, the ancient ice beds beneath a covering 

 of soil, to be an example of "former lake-shore conditions, 

 as is also the locality in the Beresovka River in north- 

 eastern Siberia described by Tolmatschow."t 



There appears to be a general agreement among all those 

 who have described the finding of mammoth remains at 

 or near Elephant Point that they are never met with in the 

 ice bed or in the earthy layers above this, but, whatever 

 their actual location at the time of discovery, have come 

 from the clay stratum below the ice layer. Indeed, the 

 most probable explanation of the greater part of these oc- 

 currences is that the bones or tusks were drifted down the 

 Buckland River on floating ice,| as were also blocks of 

 sandstone and basalt found on the beach. 



In the report of the voyage of the British ship Herald 



*A. G. Maddern, "Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in Search of Mammoth and Other 

 Fossil Remains," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Part of Vol. XLIX, Washington, 

 1907, p. 7, and 21, 22. 



fMaddern, "Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904, in Search of Mammoth and 

 Other Fossil Remains," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, part of Vol. XLIX, pp. 

 25, 38. 



{Maddern, op. cit., pp. fil. 02. 



