186 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
“ From the ‘ water-fall’ the river flows on for about 100 yards at a much steeper 
grade than at any i)omt above the falls, until it reaches an old Eussian 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 lOO feet in width, and at low tide is almost 
bare. Its length is about five-eighths of a mile. Near-tts 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 Afognak 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 gorbiischa. The bottom of the river is made 
up of material greatly similar to that in the bed of the Karluk Eiver, slate, jasper, and 
quartz gravel predominating, interspersed with bowlders similarly composed of all con- 
ceivable sizes and sha^ies. 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 ns 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 Afognak 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 
country 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 
mountains immediately surrounding the lake are more rounded in outline than those 
surrounding Karluk Lake, and at the time we saw them showed no snow-caps, although 
the mountains separating the two valleys at the northern end of the lake still carried 
