the vicinity of Bering Strait. 107 
On climbing to the brow of this bank, the rise from that brow 
proved to be broken, hummocky and full of crevices and holes; 
in fact, a second talus on a larger scale, ascending to the foot of 
a second ice-face, above which was a layer of soil one to three 
feet thick covered with herbage. 
he brow of this second bluff we estimated at eighty feet or 
more above the sea. Thence the land rose slowly and gradu- 
ally to a rounded ridge, reaching the height of three or four 
hundred feet only, at a distance of several miles from the sea, 
with its axis in a north-and-south direction, a low valley west 
from it, the shallow bay at Elephant Point east from it, and its 
northern end abutting in the cliffs above described on the 
southern shore of Eschscholtz Bay. There were no mountains 
or other high land about this ridge in any direction, all the sur- 
face around was lower than the ridge itself. 
_ About half a mile from the sea, on the highest part of the 
ridge perhaps two hundred and fifty feet above high water 
mark, at a depth of a foot, we came toa solidly frozen stratum, 
consisting chiefly of bog moss and vegetable mould, but con- 
taining good-sized lumps of clear ice. There seemed no reason 
to doubt that an extension of the digging would have brought 
us to solid, clear ice, such as was visible at the face of the 
bluff below. That is to say, it appeared that the ridge itself, 
two miles wide and two hundred and fifty feet high, was chiefly 
composed of solid ice overlaid with clay and vegetable mould. 
It was noticeable that there was much less clay over the top of 
the upper ice-face than was visible over the lower one, or over 
the single face when there was but one and the land and 
bluff were low near the beach. There also seemed to be less 
vegetable matter. Near the beach six or eight feet of clay 
The ice-face near the beach was not uniform. In many 
places it was covered with clay to the water's edge. In others, 
where the bank was less than ten feet high, the turf had bent 
without breaking after being undermined, and presented a 
mossy and herbaceous front, curving over quite to high 
water mark. 
e outer inch or two of the ice seemed granular, like 
