FOSSIL REMAINS. 
605 
for the odour which is emitted over a distance of more than a mile along this 
shore ? How inadequate is a cause so partial to so general an effect ! since, however 
numerous may be the animal remains that are buried in the interior of the cliff, no 
exhalations from them can escape through their impenetrable matrix of frozen 
mud ; and even if that fallen portion of mud which constitutes the under-cliff be ever 
so abundantly loaded with fossil bones, it is scarcely possible that these should 
undergo such rapid decomposition as to transmit strong exhalations to the surface 
through so dense a substance as saturated clay ; in fact, their high degree of pre- 
servation shows that no such rapid decomposition has taken place. 
With respect to the matrix of frozen mud, from which these remains are said 
to be derived, it appears, from specimens of it adhering to the bones, that it 
consists of micaceous sand and quartzose sand, intermixed with fine blue clay. In 
the hollow of one of the tusks I found a quantity of this compound, and some 
fragments of mica slate. All these ingredients may have been derived from the 
detritus of primative micaceous slates, such as constitute a large part of the funda- 
mental rocks of the neighbourhood of Eschscholtz Bay. 
Pebbles of porphyry also are said to occur in the cliff, and also on the beach 
below it, mixed, in the latter case, with pebbles of basalt and sandstone, and a 
few large blocks of basalt. No rock was noticed in this district from which 
these rolled stones could have been derived : some of those upon the beach may 
possibly have been drifted thither on floating icebergs. The tranquil state and 
retired position of the bay render it improbable that these pebbles have been 
brought to their present place by the influence of any existing submarine currents. 
It is important to clear from confusion two facts mentioned by Captain 
Beechey, viz. the occurrence of remains of the rein-deer and of the musk-ox along 
with bones of the elephant in Eschscholtz Bay. Had the bones of either of these 
arctic animals been found unequivocally mixed with the bones of elephants in any 
undisturbed part of the high cliff, it would have followed that the rein-deer and 
the musk-ox must have been coeval with the fossil elephant ; and this fact would 
have been nearly decisive of the question as to the climate of this region at the 
time when it was inhabited by these three species of animals. But as all the fossil 
remains collected in Eschscholtz Bay, with the exception of a very few bones and 
the tusk of an elephant that lay high up in the under cliff, were collected on the 
beach between high and lower water mark, nothing is more probable than that the 
bones of modern animals should become mixed with these fossils after they had 
fallen upon the beach in the recesses of a quiet bay. 
Kotzebue (vol. I. p. 218) says he saw many horns of rein-deer lying on the 
shore in Eschscholtz Bay, and conjectures that the Amei’icans, who frequent these 
