EVOLUTION OF ELEPHANTS 355 



scholtz Bay district, and especially to that part comprising 

 Elephant Point and the neighbouring cliffs and ridges. 

 The early explorers of a century ago had already found 

 mammoth remains in or near the strange glacial formations 

 here, and many theories were propounded to account for their 

 presence therein and for the origin of the glaciers themselves. 



The channel of Eschscholtz Bay runs from the mouth of the 

 Buckland River, at the bay's southeastern end. Its waters 

 are quite shallow, and the depth of the channel at Elephant 

 Point has been found to be only from fifteen to twenty feet. 

 The tides here vary much from time to time, with an average 

 rise of about three feet from low water. Owing to the 

 shallowness of the water these tides exercise a marked effect. 



The fossil-bearing bluff, some three miles and a half in 

 length, first noted by Kotzebue in 1815, is situated between 

 the base of Elephant Point and a vertical rocky cliff, at the 

 southern entrance of the bay, and at the western margin 

 of a Pleistocene deposit of fine micaceous silt or clay. The 

 fossil-bearing bluff does not cease at Elephant Point, but 

 is prolonged behind it and parallel with the shore of Goose 

 Bay to the southward and eastward.* 



Of all the fossil mammoth remains found on this historic 

 bluff the most interesting was the distal end of a fractured 

 thigh bone, to which adhered pieces of soft flesh and tendon. 

 Subsequent investigation indicated that part of a mammoth 

 skeleton was embedded here in its primary entombment. 

 Of this incomplete skeleton the following parts were found: 

 the right innominate bone, femur, tibia, and fibula, four of 

 the small foot bones, the lower jaw with the teeth, two tusks, 

 a number of small fragments of the skull, six thoracic verte- 

 brae, several caudal vertebrae, and the end of the tail encased 



*L. S. Quackenbush, "Notes on Alaska Mammoth Expeditions of 1907 and 1908," 

 Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Art. IX, pp. 89-130, 

 New York, March 24, 1909; see pp. 94 sqq. 



