AT 



! (libra* 



found it, in the summer at central points and near the front, even as high 

 as 65 feet per day. I have stated that the vertical ice wall where the 

 glacier discharges into the sea, is 200 feet above the water, but this is by 

 no means the total thickness of the glacier there. Soundings in the 

 immediate front of the glacier have shown a depth of over seven hundred 

 feet, and, as this is not enough to float a mass of ice rising as high 

 above the water as the Muir glacier, we are forced to conclude that the 

 ice front has a thickness of over nine hundred feet. 



A wall of ice nine hundred feet high and nearly two miles long, 

 breasting the element from which it sprang ! We are struck with awe. 

 But stop ! Let us read more of history written in characters more 

 indelible than those of man. About fifteen miles south of the present 

 front of the glacier, is Willoughby Island of pure rock, and over a thou- 

 sand feet high, without the slightest vegetation, and showing a strongly 

 striated surface due to glacial action. That this island was covered by 

 this glacier within recent times is obvious to anyone who has visited the 

 bay and noted the surrounding circumstances. 



We have the record of Vancouver too, who, a century ago, passed 

 the mouth of the bay, and reported it one mass of ice. 



Hence, had we measured the thickness of the ice only a century 

 ago, where the present ice front is, we should have found it at least 

 4,000 feet thick instead of 900 as at present. What stupendous change ! 

 and all almost within the space of a life. This evidence goes to show that 

 the Muir glacier was at one time, and not long ago, much larger than it 

 now is ; but there is evidence too, that it has been much smaller, for 

 on the west side we find a buried forest. Standing trees in situ are 

 found there, which undoubtedly are incontrovertible evidence of a for- 

 mer and greater diminution of the glacier than the present shows. 



To give another illustration of the rapid recession of the glaciers at 

 present and during the past, I will quote Sir George Simpson, Governor 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, in 1 841, paid a visit to Alaska. 

 When going up Frederick Sound and Stephen's Passage he says : 

 " The valleys were lined with glaciers down to the water's edge, and the 

 pieces that had broken off during the season filled the canals and 

 straits with fields and masses of ice, through which the vessel could 

 scarcely force her way. 



