116 ICE-CLIFFS ON WHITE RIVER, YUKON TERRITORY 



both cases, and that the latter as well as the former are uiulerlaiu l)y 

 masses of ice. 



When the face of the cliffs, as in the first two instances, was toward 

 the south, the powerful action of the sun's rays during the long sub- 

 arctic summer days of the region had made its effects very api)arent 

 on the upper portion of the cliffs, both of which were to a great ex- 

 tent hidden by talus, slopes of earth, muck, uprooted trees, and brush, 

 this latter a factor that made their detection from midstream much 

 less likely. The face of the third cliff, being toward the north, was 

 perpendicular, its base washed by the stream, and was without any 

 talus whatever. All of them under present conditions are undoubt- 

 edly undergoing a })rocess of rapid diminution. 



I think it more than likely that both the Kuskokwim and Xanana 

 rivers will, on examination, reveal ice-masses of a similar nature to 

 those on the Kowak and White, though no mention of such being 

 observed is made either by Hallock * or Allen. t When such are found, 

 if any, they may enable the geologist to determine the real nature and 

 cause of these bodies of ice, if the above theory of their being the 

 remnants of buried glaciers is not accepted. 



The main stream of White River and the Katrina or west branch 

 both take their rise among the glaciers of a range of snow peaks lying 

 east of and approximately parallel to the Coast Range, in Alaska, not 

 far from the sources of the Tanana and Copper rivers, while the east 

 branch (Klotassin River of the maps) is non-glacial and has its source 

 in a number of small affluents in Yukon Territory. The water of the 

 Klotassin is as clear as crystal, whereas the water of the main stream 

 and the Katrina is almost milky white, thus giving rise to the name 

 White River (first applied by Robert Campbell, of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, in 1850, and called Milk River by the early miners). Ladue 

 Creek, on the other hand, which enters from tbe west some 36 miles 

 above the mouth and takes its rise in the tundra and sphagnous 

 marshes near the headwaters of Sixtymile River, is of a decided 

 brown, being about the color of fairly strong tea. The main river is 

 rather more than 300 miles long, following the course of the stream, 

 and has no rapids worthy of the name, but there are a canon and rapids 

 five miles long on the west branch about 60 miles above the conflu- 

 ence. The country is dotted with lakes and lakelets in the vicinity 



♦National Geographic Magazine, vol. IX, p. 85: "Two hundred miles up tlie Kuskokwim,"* 

 Charles Hallock, March, 1898. 

 f Reconnaissance in .\la^a, Lieut. H. T. Allen. Washington, 1887. 



