ABSENCE OF PROOFS OF FORMER GLACIATION IN ALASKA. 81 



of California, had also visited Queen Charlotte Islands to examine the coal 

 deposits, supposed at one time to be of great importance. Mr. Dall had 

 begun his valuable explorations of Alaska, which have been continued since 

 that time, and of which the results have been published in part.* • From 

 verbal communications made to the \yriter by Messrs. Ashburner and Dall 

 previous to the publication of the article in question, the writer was led to 

 consider that the conditions previously ascertained by the Geological Survey 

 to exist in reference to the occurrence of the Northern Drift in California, 

 Nevada, and Oregon were very likely to prevail all along the coast and 

 within the limits of the Cordilleras generally, far towards the Arctic Ocean. 

 Much opposition has been made to this view ; but that which, in 18G6, was 

 perhajis rather a hazardous conjecture can now be supported b}' an abun- 

 dance of evidence. Indeed, tlie statement as put forth by the writer was 

 unaccompanied by any positive assertion, except for the regions which he 

 himself had explored. A full discussion of the relations of the glacial phe- 

 nomena of the Pacific Coast to those of the Northeastern States cannot, how- 

 ever, be satisfactorily entered upon until later in the present volume. What 

 remains to be done now is, to set forth what has been observed by various 

 explorers in regard to the glaciation of the Pacific Coast and the Coast 

 Ranges north of Vancouver Island. 



For the extreme northern portion of the region in question we have, so 

 far as the writer knows, no other trustworthy authority than that of Mr. 

 Dall, whose work on Alaska, published in 1870, embodies the results of 

 several years of research in that part of the country. Mr. Dall in this 

 volume.! after quoting that portion of the article published by the present 

 Avriter in the Academy's Proceedings which relates to the absence of the 

 Northern Drift from the Sierra Nevada and the local character of its detrital 

 accumulations, says, " The same is eminently true, as far as we know, of 

 Alaska." Further on he adds, "Nor in my own observations in the vicinity 

 of Sitka and the peninsula of Aliaska have I met with any cases of this most 

 characteristic phenomenon of general glacial action. If the glacier field once 

 extended over the entire coast, previous to the formation of the archipelago, 

 we may conclude that the more northern portions of the territory, north of 

 the Alaskan Mountains, would not have been exempt from glacial action. 



* See AIa.ska ami its Resources, Svo, Boston, 1870; and the Pacific Coast Pilot — Alaska ; Appendix, Meteo- 

 rology and Bibliograph}-, 4to, Washington, 1879 ; both works by W. H. Dall, of the U. S. Coast Survey, 

 t Alaska and its Resources, pp. 461, 462. 



