THE GLACIEKS 23 



the largest size descend through the forests to the 

 level of the sea, or near it, though as far as my 

 own observations have reached, after a pretty 

 thorough examination of the region, not more than 

 twenty-five discharge icebergs into the sea. All 

 the long high- walled fiords into which these great 

 glaciers of the first class flow are of course crowded 

 with icebergs of every conceivable form, which are 

 detached with thundering noise at intervals of a 

 few minutes from an imposing ice-wall that is 

 thrust forward into deep water. But these Pacific 

 Coast icebergs are small as compared with those of 

 Greenland and the Antarctic region, and only a few 

 of them escape from the intricate system of chan 

 nels, with which this portion of the coast is fringed, 

 into the open sea. Nearly all of them are swashed 

 and drifted by wind and tide back and forth in the 

 fiords until finally melted by the ocean water, the 

 sunshine, the warm winds, and the copious rains of 

 summer. Only one glacier on the coast, observed 

 by Prof. Russell, discharges its bergs directly into 

 the open sea, at Icy Cape, opposite Mount St. Elias. 

 The southernmost of the glaciers that reach the 

 sea occupies a narrow, picturesque fiord about 

 twenty miles to the northwest of the mouth of the 

 Stikeen River, in latitude 56 50'. The fiord is called 

 by the natives "Hutli," or Thunder Bay, from the 

 noise made by the discharge of the icebergs. About 

 one degree farther north there are four of these 

 complete glaciers, discharging at the heads of the 

 long arms of Holkam Bay. At the head of the 

 Tahkoo Inlet, still farther north, there is one ; and 

 at the head and around the sides of Glacier Bay, 



