50 RECONNAISSANCE IN NORTHERN ALASKA IN 1901. 



rather persistently line the oua-t. Tlie-e lagoons are screened from the force of the 

 open sea by broad wave-built barrier reefs and beacho- nf -and and gravel, through 

 which occasional narrow channels, out by the ebb and flow of the tide, connect with 

 the outer water. On portions of the coast not thus protected, during a northwest 

 gale the mouths of the smaller valleys become entirely clogged and the streams them- 

 selves are then dammed back by the broad beach barriers thrown up by the violent 

 surf. In the rear of these barriers the lower reaches of the valleys then become 

 temporarily converted into broad lakelets, whose surface may rise 5 or 6 feet above 

 normal tide level: but with the abatement of the storm a new drainage channel is 

 opened through the beach and the lake disappears. 



Near Cape Beaufort, latitude 69° 15', the above -described low topographic relief 

 gives way to a range of hills or low, rolling mountains, which, sweeping a little south 

 of west, appear at the coast with an elevation of S00 to 1,000 feet. They are sup- 

 posed by the writer to represent the westward continuation of the Meade River 

 Mountains, already referred to. Farther southwest they seem to merge into the 

 somewhat more pronounced and rugged mountains of Cape Lisburne, which, as 

 noted, are supposed to represent the westward continuation of the northern axis of 

 the Endicott Range, noted at the head of the Anaktuvuk, in longitude 152°. 



Here these mountains, as noted, terminate at the coast in abrupt sea cliffs, form- 

 ing the bold promontory of Cape Lisburne, w r hich rises to a height of 850 feet above 

 tide. From Cape Lisburne the mountains, with decreased altitudes, continue south- 

 westward in several successive parallel ridges, trending at about right angles to the 

 coast. The shore line, however, is here less abrupt, as shown in fig. 1 (p. 40). 



About 30 miles south of Cape Lisburne the shore extends out nearly 15 miles to 

 the west in an immense tongue of low, sandy land, known as Point Hope, which is 

 backed by bluffs at its inland end. 



From Point Hope southeastward to Cape Krusenstern, at the entrance to Kot- 

 zebue Sound, the coast is reported to be low and somewhat rock}', with intervals of 

 lagoons and wave-built barrier reefs, somewhat resembling those already described; 

 but in latitude 67° 35', opposite the great bend of the Noatak, low mountains, known 

 as the Mulgrave Hills, again approach the coast. 



The streams entering the coast on the northwest are nearly all short. The prin- 

 cipal, beginning at the north, are Kee, Kukpowruk, Pitmegea, and Kukpuk rivers. 



GEOLOGY. 



GEOLOGIC MAP AND SECTIONS. 



The results of the very incomplete observations concerning the distribution 

 of the geologic formations here treated of are represented on the accompanying 

 geologic map (PL III), the colored portion of which, comprising an area of about 

 27,000 square miles, lies mainly between the one hundred and fiftieth and one 



