NOME REGION. 133 
other localities at elevations as great as 800 or 900 feet, 1,400 feet in 
one place, above sea level. Such foreign fragments are rare if they 
occur at all in the deep elevated gravels at Dexter station, on the 
Nome Arctic Railway, but are numerous in the surface gravels at the 
head of Grass and Specimen gulches. They are often seen in the 
gravel deposits of Nome tundra, both at the surface and in the old 
beach deposits, where the fragments appear to be smaller and perhaps 
more rounded and weathered than those above. It is probable that 
much of the granite in the old beaches was brought by ordinary 
stream transportation or was carried along the shore from such locali- 
ties as Cape Nome by the surf and ocean currents, and that most of the 
large surface bowlders were brought to their present location through 
the agency of ice, though in some places their position and quantity are 
such as to make it appear doubtful whether transportation by floating 
ice offers a complete explanation of their presence. 
An examination of the deposits in the field therefore confirms the 
opinion concerning the character of the stream gravels which one 
would reach by a study of the maps alone — namely, that the gravels 
of the large southwestward, southward, and southeastward flowing 
streams show a greater variety of material than is seen on the smaller 
tributaries whose loose deposits are of more local origin. The fact 
which it is desired to bring out, however, is that on these small 
streams most of the gravels were laid down under present-day con- 
ditions such as will not account for the peculiarities and position 
of much of the gravels along the larger streams and of the elevated 
gravels. Two explanations have been suggested to account for 
such gravel accumulations as are found on the divides at the head 
of Dexter Creek, which in the saddle at Dexter station have a thick- 
ness of 135 feet. The first is that they are remnants of an extensive 
gravel sheet deposited at a time when the land had an elevation at 
least 600 feet lower than now and when the drainage systems may 
have been quite different. The second would account for their 
presence by considering them to have been deposited when the 
main stream valleys were occupied by glacial ice and the waters 
were ponded in some of the tributary streams. It does not seem 
possible, with the present knowledge, to say definitely that these 
gravel deposits are to be ascribed wholly to either cause, and it is not 
impossible that both conditions may have prevailed in some degree. 
The bed rock and pay streak at Dexter station, however, are such as 
to make it appear probable that the gold there was deposited by a 
southward-flowing stream or streams, since two well-defined stream 
channels at slightly different elevations lead from the head of Nekula 
Gulch through a bed-rock depression on the south toward Deer and 
Grouse gulches., 
