FOSSIL REMAINS. 
603 
superficial peat that falls into them. Small streams of muddy water, of the con- 
sistence of cream, ooze from the sides of these ravines, the water being supplied 
by the melting of the particles of ice which pervade the substance of the frozen 
mud and peat. 
There I’emain, then, three important points, on which all the English officers 
concur in the same opinion: 1st, That the bones and tusks of elephants at 
Eschscholtz Bay are not derived from the superficial peat ; 2dly, That they are 
not derived from any masses of pure ice ; 3dly, That, although collected chiefly on 
the shore at the base of the falling cliff, they are derived only from the mud and 
sand of which this cliff is composed. 
The occurrence of cliffs composed of diluvial mud is by no means peculiar to 
the south shore of Eschscholtz Bay. It will be seen by reference to the map 
(plate I. Geology), that they are more extensive, but at a less elevation along the 
north shore of this same bay, and also on the south-west of it at. Shallow Inlet, in 
Spafarief Bay. Indeed, in following the line of coast north-eastwards, from the 
Arctic Circle, near Beering’s Strait, to lat. 71” N., wherever the coast is low, there 
is a long succession of cliffs of mud, in the following order : 1. Schischmareff Inlet. 
2. Bay of Good Hope, on the south of Kotzebue’s Sound. 3. Spafarief Bay, at 
the south-east extremity of Kotzebue’s Sound. 4. Elephant Point, in Eschscholtz 
Bay. 5. At the mouth of the Buckland River, at the head of Eschscholtz Bay. 
6. The north coast of Eschscholtz Bay. 7* Cape Blossom. 8. Point Hope. 
9. Prom Cape Beaufort to twenty miles east of Icy Cape. 10. Lunar Station, 
near lat. 71“- — At the base of the mud cliff, fifteen feet high, in the Bay of 
Good Hope, a small piece of a tusk of an elephant was found upon the shore. 
At Shallow Inlet, the mud cliff was fifteen feet high, without any facings of 
ice, or appearance of bones ; yet there was the same smell at low water as in 
the cliffs near Elephant Point, that abound so much in bones. At Icy Cape 
the cliffs of mud behind the islands were about twenty feet high, but were not 
examined. Patches of pure ice were observed hanging on the mud cliffs in 
many places along this coast, but only where there was peat at the top ; hence it 
may be inferred, that the ice, in such cases, is formed by water oozing from 
the peat. At High Cape, near Hotham Inlet, is a cliff of mud, a hundred feet 
high, covered at the top with peat, and having patches of ice upon its surface; 
but no bones were found here. In those parts of the coast where the cliffs are 
rocky there were no facings of ice. 
Having thus far stated the evidence we possess respecting the facts connected 
with the discovei*y of these bones in Eschscholtz Bay, I will proceed to offer a few 
remarks in illustration and explanation of them, and to consider how far they tend 
4h2 
