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THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



regard to the sea level is very much what we might expect from 

 the action of the rivers and tides still in progress, though in some 

 places they are probably a little higher than the present circum- 

 stances will explain. Had the coast permanently changed its 

 elevation by as much as fifty feet in either direction, during 

 many centuries, the aspect of affairs would no doubt be quite 

 different. 



Vancouver gives in the course of his relation, some singularly 

 interesting statements bearing on the sinking of the coast. Of 

 Port Chalmers, in Prince William's Sound (lat. 60° 16') under 

 date June, 1794, he writes* : — 



" The shores are in general low, and as has already been 

 observed, very swampy in many places, on which the sea appears 

 to be making more rapid encroachments than I ever before saw 

 or heard of. Many trees had been cut down since these regions 

 were first visited by Europeans ; this was evident from the 

 visible effects of the axe and saw, which we concluded had been 

 produced whilst Messrs. Portlock and Dixon were here, seven 

 years before our arrival, as the stumps of the trees were still re- 

 maining on the earth where they had originally grown, but were 

 now many feet below the high water mark even of neap tides. 

 A narrow low projecting point of land behind which we rode, 

 had not long since afforded support to some of the largest pine 

 trees in the neighbourhood, but it was now overflowed by every 

 tide, and excepting two of the trees which still put forth a few 

 leaves, the whole were reduced to naked, dead white stumps, by 

 the encroachment of the sea water to the roots ; and some 

 stumps of trees, with their roots still fast in the ground, were 

 also found in no very advanced stage of decay nearly as low 

 down as the low water of spring tides." 



The place here spoken of by Vancouver, has it seems lately 

 been called Sinking Point by the U. S. Coast Survey. It is 

 mentioned under this name by Mr. Davidson in the Alaska 

 Coast Pilot (1869) who however gives no description of its 

 present appearance. Mr. Davidson suggests that the trees ob- 

 served by Vancouver may have been felled by the Russians 

 before Portlock and Dixon's visit, but as these commanders 

 stayed here ten days, careening and overhauling their vessels, 



* A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the 

 World. London 1801. Vol. V., p. 335. 



