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602 APPENDIX.
visited by the English expedition, the patches of ice upon the cliff in question
were very few in number, and variable from one year to another; that the “ masses
of the purest ice of the height of a hundred feet,” which were seen by the Russian
officers, had entirely vanished; and that nearly the whole front of the cliff, from
the sea at its base to the peat that grew on its summit, presented a continuous
mass of indurated mud and sand, or of under-cliffs formed by the subsidence of
these materials.
It seems quite certain therefore that there must have been a material change in
the quantity of ice on the cliffin Eschscholtz Bay in the interval between the visits
of Lieutenant Kotzebue and Captain Beechey; and if we suppose that, during this
interval, there was an extensive thawing of the icy front that was seen by Kotzebue,
but which existed not at the time of Beechey’s visit, we find in this hypothesis a
solution of the discrepancy between these officers; since what to the first would
appear a solid iceberg, when it was glazed over with a case of ice, would, after
the melting ofthat ice, exhibit to the latter a continuous cliff of frozen diluvial mud.
Whilst the ice prevailed all over the front of the cliff, any bones that had fallen from
it before the formation of this ice, and which lay on the under cliffs or upon the
shore, must, by an error almost inevitable, have been presumed to fall from the
imaginary iceberg.
This circumstance seems to suggest to us that it is worthy of consideration
whether or not there may have existed any similar cause of error in the case of the
celebrated carcass of an elephant in Siberia, which is said to have fallen entire from
an iceberg in the cliffs near the Lena. The Tungusian who discovered this carcass
suspended in what he called an iceberg may possibly have made no very accurate
distinction between a pure iceberg and a cliff of frozen mud.
It is stated by Lieutenant Belcher, that at a spot he visited on the S. E.
shore of Eschscholtz Bay, on ascending what appeared at first to be a solid hillock,
he found a heap of loose materials, unsafe to walk on, and having streams of liquid
mud oozing from it on all sides through coarse grass; that as the melting subsoil
of this hillock.sinks gradually down, the incumbent peat subsides with it; so that
at no very distant period the entire hillock will disappear. In otlier mud cliffs,
also, he observed similar streams of liquid mud, accompanied by a depression of
the surface immediately above them. Thus, from the month of June to October
these cliffs are constantly thawing, and throwing down small avalanches of mud,
which, between Cape Blossom and Cape Kruzenstern, are so numerous that you
can scarce stand there an hour without witnessing the downfall of some portion of
the thawing cliffs. Hence originate a succession of ravines and gullies, which do
not run far inland, and afford no sections, being covered with the debris of the
7
FOSSIL REMAINS. 603
superficial peat that falls into them. Small streams of muddy water, of the consistence
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 remain, 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. Erom 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 liundred 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 discovery ofthese 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
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