TIIK NAUTILUS. 27 



interest are visited, and a side trip up Taku Inlet shows the great 

 Taku and Windom Glaciers. Formerly Glacier Bay was visited for 

 a view of the Muir Glacier, but the immense amount of float ice and 

 icebergs which have formed within the last two or three years make 

 this visit unsafe and it has been abandoned. 



On our trip we saw all that the regular tourist sees, and for full 

 measure we ran west from Juneau into the open ocean, making a run 

 of several hundred miles to Prince William Sound and Cook's Inlet. 

 As we ran out of the still waters of Cross Sound into the open ocean 

 early one morning on our right opened up the Fairweather range, 

 one of the finest mountain ranges in all Alaska. One after another 

 the great peaks came into view, until the whole range was off our 

 starboard side. Many mountain ranges do not show their full ex- 

 tent, as to be seen the foothills must be crossed, and one's own 

 elevation cuts down the apparent height. Here the range comes to 

 the very ocean, and the overpowering sense of altitude is there- 

 Four peaks rise above 10,000 feet, and Mt. Fairweather towers to 

 15,292 feet. From one point we could count six great glaciers, mak- 

 ing their beginnings in the everlasting snows at the top and winding 

 down like great rivers toward the sea. 



At Cordova, on Prince William Sound, a place of 1200 people, 

 which has grown in a year, we were taken inland fifty-three miles 

 on the Copper River Railroad. This road, which is ultimately to 

 reach a veritable mountain of copper, crosses several branches of the 

 Copper River which are making the delta at its mouth, and then 

 goes up the left bank until a point is reached where on each side, 

 and within four miles of each other, a great glacier comes down to 

 discharge its icebergs into the river. The face of each glacier rises 

 sheer 350 to 400 feet, and each is over four miles wide along the 

 river's bank. Opposite the lower, Child's Glacier, at a distance of 

 1500 or 2000 feet, we amused ourselves taking photographs, and re- 

 peatedly were successful in catching the great masses of ice as they 

 broke away. In the face of this body of ice we actually suffered 

 from the heat of the June day. 



At Cordova I took advantage of a tine tide to do a couple of hours 

 collecting, being rewarded by several good things, the best being a 

 fine Mact.ra (Spisula) alaskana Dall. From Cordova we went to 

 Valdez, the point of departure of the great dog teams for the Fair- 

 banks region during the winter, but a very dull town in summer. 



