^Travels in Alaska 



freshly glaciated region the shores have been so short 

 a time exposed to wave-action that they are scarcely 

 at all wasted. The extension of the sea affected by its 

 own action in post-glacial times is probably less than 

 the millionth part of that affected by glacial action 

 during the last glacier period. The direction of the 

 flow of the ice-sheet to which all the main features of 

 this wonderful region are due was in general south- 

 ward. 



From this quiet little English town I made many 

 short excursions up the coast to Nanaimo, to Bur- 

 rard Inlet, now the terminus of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railroad, to Puget Sound, up Fraser River to New 

 Westminster and Yale at the head of navigation, 

 charmed everywhere with the wild, new-born scen- 

 ery. The most interesting of these and the most 

 difficult to leave was the Puget Sound region, famous 

 the world over for the wonderful forests of gigantic 

 trees about its shores. It is an arm and many-fingered 

 hand of the sea, reaching southward from the Straits 

 of Juan de Fuca about a hundred miles into the 

 heart of one of the noblest coniferous forests on the 

 face of the globe. All its scenery is wonderful 

 broad river-like reaches sweeping in beautiful curves 

 around bays and capes and jutting promontories, 

 opening here and there into smooth, blue, lake-like 

 expanses dotted with islands and feathered with tall, 

 spiry evergreens, their beauty doubled on the bright 

 mirror-water. 



Sailing from Victoria, the Olympic Mountains are 

 seen right ahead, rising in bold relief against the sky, 



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