martin.] GEOLOGY OF COLD BAY REGION. 51 
streams. The flat lowlands along the shores of Cold Bay are covered 
with deep grass, but the hillsides and upland region have no vegeta- 
tion except scattered tufts of grass and moss (PI. VII). This vege- 
tation is characteristic of the greater part of the Alaska Peninsula. 
There are no natives in the immediate vicinity of Cold Bay. The 
two oil companies which are operating in the region have brought 
their native employees from settlements at various points along the 
shores of Shelikof Strait. 
GEOLOGY. 
The region in the vicinity of Cold Bay has been visited by many 
geologists from time to time and a good deal of scattered information 
is published. 
On one end of the promontory at the eastern entrance to Cold Bay 
Pinart obtained a number of specimens of Monotis salinaria, which 
was subsequently identified and figured by Fischer, and which is 
a characteristic Triassic form. 
The promontory at the southwestern entrance to Cold Bay, which 
has been called by rannj names, but is now known as Cape Aklek, 
was visited by Doroschin, who collected Belemnites. Plant impres- 
sions which resemble and have been considered Catamites, but which 
have been shown to be reeds of a more modern type, occurred in sand- 
stones just above. 
The region was visited in 1895 by Dr. W. H. Dall, who says of it : 
Though no strata evidently of Kenai age were found in this hay, yet there 
were in several places fossil wood and vegetable remains. Near the northeast 
part of the harbor, east of a stream which comes in here, the rocks consist chiefly 
of calcareous sandstones, or sandy limestones, containing numerous concre- 
tionary nodules and some pebbles. In this nearly horizontal limestone, which is 
very massive and weathers into most bizarre shapes near the shore, we found a 
small scam of carbonaceous shale with occasional thin laminae of clear coal. 
This shale is only a few inches thick. In shaly streaks of the limestone were 
vegetable impressions resembling those noted at Cape Douglas. On the other 
side of the stream, above the anchorage, these strata were arched and dipped 
30° NW. On the opposite side of the main bay, well up on the hillside, was 
found a calcareous shale with impressions of pine needles, above which was 
a heavy bed of conglomerate covered by a hard, perhaps andesitic, rock of 
igneous origin. From fragments fallen from above it seemed that this rock is 
more coarse grained and friable higher up. It is unconformable with the other 
rocks. In the limestones near the south point of entrance impressions of reed- 
like plants and much fossil wood were observed. No coal seams were observed 
in this vicinity. a 
Well up on the northeastern side of the bay is a valley which a stream drains, 
off the mouth of which is anchorage. Westward of the stream is a rather high 
(2,000-2,500 feet) ridge, recalling the Mesozoic mountains about Tuxcdni 
Harbor, eroded in benches and having a singularly artificial aspect. From 
the first bench on this ridge Mr. Purington obtained a few Mesozoic fossils, 
a Dall, W. II., Report on coal and lignites of Alaska : Seventeenth Ann. Kept. U. S. 
Geol. Survey, pt. 1, p. 801. 
