108 W. H. Dall—Notes on Alaska and 
mould in the clay quite perfect. 
In other places the ice was penetrated with deep holes, into 
which the clay and vegetable matter had been deposited in lay- 
ers, and which (the ice melting away from around them) 
appeared as clay and muck cylinders on the ice-face. Large 
rounded holes or excavations of irregular form had evidently 
existed on the top of the ice before the clay, etc., had been de- 
posited. These were usually filled with a finer-grained deposit 
of clay with less vegetable matter, and the layers were waved, 
as if the deposit had been affected by current action while 
going on. 
In these places was noticed, especially, the most unexpected 
fact connected with the whole formation, namely, a strong, 
peculiar smell, as of rotting animal matter, burnt leather and 
stable manure combined. is odor was not confined to the 
spots above mentioned, and was not quite the same at all places, 
but had the same general character wherever it was noticed. 
A large part of the clay had no particular smell. At the places 
where the odor was strongest, it was observed to emanate par- 
ticularly from darker, pasty spots in the clay (though permate- 
- ing elsewhere), leading to the supposition that these might be 
remains of the soft parts of the mammoth and other animals, 
whose bones are daily washed out by the sea from the clay 
us. 
feet long and six inches in diameter, which I shall forward to 
the office. Dwarf birches, alders, seven or eight feet high, 
with stems three inches in diameter, and a luxuriant growth of 
herbage, including numerous very toothsome berries, grew with 
the roots less than a foot from perpetual solid ice. 
The formation of the surrounding country shows no high 
land or rocky hills, from which a glacier might have been de- 
rived and then covered with debris from their sides. The con- 
tinuity of the mossy surface showed that the ice must be quite 
destitute of motion, and the circumstances appeared to point to 
