24 SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



here on it winds about, in long curves until it reaches a waterfall about 2 miles below 

 the lake. Here the river crosses either a dike or a bed of very hard saudstone (the 

 rock is much decomposed so that it; is hard to tell its original character) falling about 

 20 feet in a series of cascades about 70 feet long. 



" From the ' waterfall ' the river flows on for about 100 yards at a much steeper 

 grade than at any point above the falls, until it reaches an old Russian timber zapor 

 about 6 feet in height, over and through which it falls, to continue 500 yards further in 

 its steep channel until it reaches tide level and spreads out over its wide and shallow 

 estuary. This estuary ranges from 100 to 4U0 feet in width, and at low tide is almost 

 bare. Its length is about five eighths of a mile. Near its mouth the river has again 

 cut through a bed of hard rock, and the channel is narrowed down to about 50 feet 

 and scoured out chiefly by tidal action to a depth of about 4 feet. Another ledge, ap- 

 parently not so hard as the last-mentioned one, crops out about one-fourth of a mile 

 below the zapor. In the upper end of Afoguak Bay, around the mouth of the estuary, 

 the bottom is covered with an exceedingly rank growth of the narrow flat-leaved eel 

 grass; so thick is the growth of this grass that it is very difficult to push a boat even 

 in 3 feet of water if the tide is low. 



" At the time of our visit, in the latter days of August, the stage of the water in 

 the river was exceedingly low. In the river proper there was no part of the channel 

 where more than 18 inches of water covered the bed, and 12 inches would be fully the 

 average depth, while places were found where the water was not more than 4 inches 

 deep. Yet the river was well filled with gorbuscha. The bottom of the river is made 

 up of material greatly similar to that in the bed of the Karluk River, slate, jasper and 

 quartz gravel predominating, interspersed with bowlders similarly composed of all con- 

 ceivable sizes and shapes. The cross-section of the bed is uniformly level, but filled 

 with holes the bottoms of which were composed of gravel about egg-size usually, but 

 sometimes contained stones of 3 or 4 pounds weight. The gorbuscha were thickest in 

 the neighborhood of these holes, but on examining the holes we found very few eggs 

 under the gravel. Scarcely any finely divided slate was found in the river bed, 

 although the banks were largely made up of this material. Although the river was 

 so shallow at the time of our visit, Mr. Stokes, of the Russian American Packing Com- 

 pany, told us that in March last he was unable on account of the depth of the water 

 to wade it in a pair of high rubber boots. This would make its depth over 3 feet. 



"The river flows for almost its whole length through a valley, about 2 miles wide 

 near the lake, gradually narrowing to about one-half mile at the head of Afoguak Bay. 

 This valley is filled with low mound-like- hills, covered with a thick growth of the 

 spruce peculiar to this portion of Alaska. Between these hills are gullies with small 

 streams, almost completely hidden by the dense growth of sphagnum winding about in 

 them. These woods are usually well supplied with salmon berries, blueberries, and 

 huckleberries, so much so as to be noted for this throughout Alaska. The shores of 

 the river are either flat or gently sloping, being composed of finely-divided slate gravel, 

 which does not admit of very steep banks. Without doubt the present river valley, 

 in common with that of the Karluk and other rivers of this region, was the channel 

 of an ancient glacier, the traces of which are masked under the present abundant 

 growth of bushes and tall grass, leaving nothing but the general configuration of the 

 couutry to betray their former existence. Near the bay the shores of the estuary 

 assume the form of low bluffs, similar to those at Karluk, but not so high. The 



