NUNIVAK ISLAND. 1 



33 



Unalaska island. It will be observed that Mr Stanley-Brown does not 

 question the finding of the mammoth remains on the Pribilof islands, 

 and I do not attach the same significance to the absence of extraneous 

 earthy matter in the soil to which -he refers. This, in fact, appears to 

 afford further reason to believe that the bones could not have been carried 

 thither in any adventitious manner, and to render it as nearly as pos- 

 sible certain that the animals to which they belonged must have found 

 their way to the islands at a time when they were connected with the 

 American continent by means of a wide plain, such as Mr Stanley-Brown 

 himself explains in one of the paragraphs of his paper,t would be made 

 if an elevation of 200 feet should now take place in Bering sea. 



The absence of old sea-margins on the Pribilof islands may be accepted 

 as showing that since the time of their original elevation above the sea 

 they have not been again submerged, but there is no evidence whatever 

 to show that they may not have stood at higher levels. 



My observations agree with those of Mr Stanley-Brown in regard to 

 the absence of erratics above the present sea-margin, but it may be added 

 that not infrequent pebbles and small bowlders of granitic rocks occur 

 upon the actual beaches in association with local debris. These have 

 in all probability been brought hither either by the floe-ice, which fills 

 this part of Bering sea in winter, or attached to the roots of drift tree- 

 trunks, which are often washed ashore. 



NuiMVAK Island. 



The form of Nunivak island is very imperfectly represented on the 

 charts. It was approached by us on the 7th of August on its south- 

 western side, where a landing was effected. On the following day the 

 western and northern shores were coasted at a distance as small as ap- 

 peared to be compatible with safety, and the next night was spent at 

 anchor in Eteolin harbor, at the northeastern extremity of the island. 



The island is throughout grass-covered, but entirely devoid of trees, 

 though a few stunted shrubs are found in some of the valleys. Its 

 coasts are usually rather low, but vertical cliffs of 100 to 150 feet in 

 height appear at the points and projecting headlands, while shelving 

 rocky shores, with occasional sandbeaches and sanddunes, characterize 

 the various open bays. The cUffs show several superposed and horizon- 

 tal layers of basaltic rock, and in the low hills of the interior of the 

 island similar but overlying massive flows of the same kind may be 

 traced. These hills are all more or less plateau-like in form, and might 

 readily be mistaken in some places for old marine terraces. The highest 



* Op. cit., p. 496. 

 XVIII— BuLi-. Geol. Soc. Am., Voi,. 5, 1893. 



