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In Alaska
IN ALASKA, to the north of Mount McKlnley, the tallest
mountain in North America, the Tanana River joins the
Yukon. From the Tanana Valley and the valleys of its
tributaries gold is mined out of gravel and “muck.*’ This
muck is a frozen mass of animals and trees.
F. Rainey of the University of Alaska described the
scene: l “Wide cuts, often several miles in length and
sometimes as much as 140 feet in depth, are now being
sluiced out along stream valleys tributary to the Tanana
in the Fairbanks District. In order to reach gold-bearing
gravel beds an overburden of frozen silt or ‘muck’ is
removed with hydraulic giants. This 4 muck’ contains
enormous numbers of frozen bones of extinct animals
such as the mammoth, mastodon, super-bison and
horse.” 2
These animals perished in rather recent times; present
estimates place their extinction at the end of the Ice Age
or in early post-glacial times. The soil of Alaska covered
their bodies together with those of animals of species still
surviving.
1 F. Rainey. “Archaeological Investigation in Central Alaska,” Ameri-
can Antiquity, V (1940), 305.
2 The horse became extinct hi pre-Columbian America; the present
horses in the Western Hemisphere are descendants of imported animals.
1
2 IN THE NORTH
Under what conditions did this great slaughter take
place, in which millions upon millions of animals were
torn limb from limb and mingled with uprooted trees?
F. C. Hibben of the University of New Mexico writes:
“Although the formation of the deposits of muck is not
clear, there is ample evidence that at least portions of this
material were deposited under catastrophic conditions.
Mammal remains are for the most part dismembered and
disarticulated, even though some fragments yet retain,
in their frozen state, portions of ligaments, skin, hair,
and flesh. Twisted and torn trees are piled in splintered
masses. ... At least four considerable layers of volcanic
ash may be traced in these deposits, although they are
extremely warped and distorted. . . .” 3
http://www.archive.org/stream/earthupheaval010880mbp/earthupheaval010880mbp_djvu.txt