706 
THE MIDDLE YUKON1—UL. 
WHEN we were nearly ready to start, on the 
morning of the 17th, we found four Ayan 
Indians, in as many canoes, at our camp, from 
the Kah-tung village above, they having left it 
shortly after we had, and camped just above 
us on the river for the night. They were 
going down the river some two hundred to 
three hundred miles, to a white trader’s, and 
we kept passing each other for the next three 
or four days. I found the floating of the raft, 
carefully kept in the current for from twelve 
to fourteen hours each day, with no detentions, | 
fully equalled the average day’s journeys of the 
canoes, which were in the water but seven or 
eight hours a day; their occupants stopping to 
hunt every animal that was seen, and to cook a 
midday lunch. In fact, my Indians that traded 
among them more than hinted that they were 
hurrying in order to go along with us. 
I should have stated, that on the 16th we had 
a number of disagreeable thunder-showers in 
the afternoon ; their rarity ont his river making 
them interesting to note. The Ayans that met 
us on the morning of the 17th had with them 
the carcass of a black bear, which they offered 
us for sale: and on buying one hindquarter, 
all that we could use, they offered us the rest 
as a present; which offer being accepted only 
as far as the other hindquarter, the rest was 
left by them on the gravel-beach, which was 
explained by the fact that all four of these 
were medicine-men, and as such they never 
partook of bear-meat. They told us that it 
was the bear we had seen the day before. 
The morning of the 17th, and, in fact, in- 
tervals during the day, were characterized 
by a heavy fog, not quite reaching the river- 
bottom, but cutting the hills at an altitude of 
from three hundred to four hundred feet above 
the level of the stream. It gave the country 
a dismal air, but was much better in physical 
comfort than the day before, with its alternat- 
ing rain and blistering heat. We found these 
fogs to be very common on this part of the 
river, being almost inseparable from the south- 
ern winds, the prevailing ones at this time of 
the year. I suppose the fog results from the 
moisture-laden air over the warm Pacific cross- 
ing the glacier-capped mountains of the Alaskan 
coast, and reaching this part of the Yukon val- 
ley with its aqueous vapor precipitated as rain 
or fog. About half-past one in the afternoon 
we floated past the mouth of the White River, 
coming in from the south, which has the local 
name of Yu-ko-kon Heen-a, or Yukokon River, 
+ Concluded from No. 70. 
SCIENCE. 
thee ee ae g he al lied ce * ee kV A 5 
a ede 
[Vou. Laie 
a much prettier name than the old one of the 
Hudson-Bay traders. The Chilcats call it the 
Sand River, from the innumerable bars and 
banks of sand along its course; and many 
years ago they ascended it by a trail, which, 
continued, leads to their country, but is now 
abandoned. Forty or fifty miles up its valley 
the trail leading from the head of the Tanana 
to old Selkirk crosses its course ; and since Fort 
Selkirk was burned in 1851, the Tanana Indians, 
who then used it considerably to reach that 
point for trading, travel it but little. It seems 
to flow almost liquid mud (and no better ex- 
ample of its extreme muddiness can be given 
than to state that one person of the party mis- 
took a mass of timber on the up-stream side 
of a low, flat mud-bar, for floating timber, 
and as evidence of a freshet, which seemed 
apparent from the muddy water, until its per- 
manent character was established by closer ob- 
servation). The mud-bar and adjacent waters 
were so exactly of the same color, that the 
line of demarcation was not readily apparent. 
The Indians say that it rises in glacier lands, 
and that it is very swift, and full of rapids, 
along its whole course. So swift is it at its 
mouth, that it pours its muddy waters into the 
rapid Yukon, and carries them nearly across 
that stream; the waters of the two streams 
mingling almost at once, and not running for 
miles distinct, as is stated in one book on 
Alaska. From its mouth to Bering Sea, the 
Yukon is so muddy that it is noticeable even 
when taken up in the palm of a hand; and all 
fishing with hook and line ceases. 
About four in the afternoon the mouth of the 
Stewart River was passed, and, being covered 
with islands, would not have been noticed ex- 
cept by its valley, which is very conspicuous. 
A visit to the shore showed its mouth to be 
deltoid in character, three mouths being no- 
ticed, and probably more existing. Islands 
were very numerous in this vicinity, and cov- 
ered with spruce and poplar. The swift cur- 
rent, cutting into their alluvial banks, kept 
their edges bristling with freshly fallen timber ; 
and it was almost destruction to get under this 
abatis of trees with the raft, in the powerful 
current, and some of our hardest work was to 
avoid it, —a very hard thing to.do, as, where 
they were the thickest, the current set in the 
strongest. 
It may be necessary to explain how a greater 
amount of such fallen timber should exist on 
this river than on any other in the temperate 
zones equally wooded, and I think I can do so 
to the satisfaction of my readers. Fig. 10 
represents a bank of any river, the stumps s s 
