134 G. M. DAWSON — COASTS OF BERING SEA AND VICINITY. 



parts of the island were estimated at about 500 feet. At Eteolin harbor 

 the rock is a gray olivine-diabase, very porous and cellular, and separated 

 into layers which similate horizontal bedding, but which are due to flow 

 structure. 



Part of the east coast of the island was subsequently seen from a dis- 

 tance, and its appearance is so similar to that of the other coasts that 

 there can be little doubt that the island is entirely composed of nearly 

 horizontal basaltic flows. The basalts examined are all fresh looking 

 and unaltered, like those of Saint Paul island. The much altered sand- 

 stones reported by Dall at Eteolin harbor were not found, nor was I able 

 to identify any volcanic cones upon this island.* 



No erratics or traces of glaciation were observed on the parts of Nuni- 

 vak island visited. 



Cape Vancouver. 



Cape Vancouver, twenty -five miles distant from the eastern coast of 

 Nunivak island, is a projecting point of Nelson island, which is to all 

 intents a portion of the adjacent Alaskan mainland. It is a bold and 

 high promontory, which, though scarcely to be characterized as moun- 

 tainous, rises to a height of probably 1,000 or 1,500 feet. It evidently 

 forms one of several or many projections of higher land along this part 

 of the Alaskan coast, which are connected by broad, low, level tracts. 

 The north shore of the cape, which alone was examined, forms scar23ed 

 bluffs or cliffs, rising from the edge of the sea, and presenting fine ex- 

 posures of sandstones and sandy shales, well bedded and dipping south- 

 ward, at low and undulating angles. At the extremity of the capejthese 

 beds appeared to be horizontal, and on the south side, though imper- 

 fectly seen from a distance, they seem to lie at higher and more irregular 

 inclinations. 



The sandstones, where examined, are gray, bluish and brownish in 

 color, rather soft, and sometimes nodular. They contain a few very thin 

 and dirty seams of coal or lignite, of which the thickest seen was only 

 a few inches. There are also in the sandstones numerous carbonaceous 

 fragments and occasional fossil leaves, of which a couple were collected. 

 These have been submitted to Sir J. William Dawson, who supplies the 

 following note upon them : 



"No. 1. Juglans acuminata, R. Brauii, Hear, Flora Fossilis Alaskana, 1869, page 

 38. lb., Flora Fossihs Arctica, vol. I. Ih., Contributions to Fossil Flora of N. 

 Greenland. Trans. Royal Society, 1809. 



*' This species is stated by Heer to occur in sandstone at English bay, Alaska. It 

 is also found at x\tanekerdluk in Greenland, and is said to occur in the European 



* Cf. Dall, op. cit., p. 245. 



