EVOLUTION OF ELEPHANTS 355
scholtz
Bay district, and especially to that part comprising Elephant Point and
the neighbouring cliffs and ridges. The early explorers of a century
ago had already found mammoth remains in or near the strange glacial
formations here, and many theories were propounded to account for their
presence therein and for the origin of the glaciers themselves.
The
channel of Eschscholtz Bay runs from the mouth of the Buckland River,
at the bay's southeastern end. Its waters are quite shallow, and the
depth of the channel at Elephant Point has been found to be only from
fifteen to twenty feet. The tides here vary much from time to time,
with an average rise of about three feet from low water. Owing to the
shallowness of the water these tides exercise a marked effect.
The
fossil-bearing bluff, some three miles and a half in length, first
noted by Kotzebue in 1815, is situated between the base of Elephant
Point and a vertical rocky cliff, at the southern entrance of the bay,
and at the western margin of a Pleistocene deposit of fine micaceous
silt or clay. The fossil-bearing bluff does not cease at Elephant
Point, but is prolonged behind it and parallel with the shore of Goose
Bay to the southward and eastward.*
Of
all the fossil mammoth remains found on this historic bluff the most
interesting was the distal end of a fractured thigh bone, to which
adhered pieces of soft flesh and tendon. Subsequent investigation
indicated that part of a mammoth skeleton was embedded here in its
primary entombment. Of this incomplete skeleton the following parts
were found : the right innominate bone, femur, tibia, and fibula, four
of the small foot bones, the lower jaw with the teeth, two tusks, a
number of small fragments of the skull, six thoracic vertebrae,
several caudal vertebrae, and the end of the tail encased
*L.
S. Quackenbush, "Notes on Alaska Mammoth Expeditions of 1907 and 1908,"
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXVI, Art. IX,
pp. 89-130, New York, March 24, 1909; see pp. 94 sqq.
