24 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



trending in a general northerly direction from 

 Cross Sound in latitude 58 to 59, there are seven 

 of these complete glaciers pouring bergs into the 

 bay and its branches, and keeping up an eternal 

 thundering. The largest of this group, 4he Muir, 

 has upward of 200 tributaries, and a width below 

 the confluence of the main tributaries of about 

 twenty-five miles. Between the west side of this 

 icy bay and the ocean all the ground, high and low, 

 excepting the peaks of the Fairweather Range, is 

 covered with a mantle of ice from 1000 to probably 

 3000 feet thick, which discharges by many distinct 

 mouths. 



This fragmentary ice-sheet, and the immense 

 glaciers about Mount St. Elias, together with the 

 multitude of separate river-like glaciers that load 

 the slopes of the coast mountains, evidently once 

 formed part of a continuous ice-sheet that flowed 

 over all the region hereabouts, and only a compara 

 tively short time ago extended as far southward 

 as the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, prob 

 ably farther. All the islands of the Alexander 

 Archipelago, as well as the headlands and prom 

 ontories of the mainland, display telling traces of 

 this great mantle that are still fresh and unmistak 

 able. They all have the forms of the greatest 

 strength with reference to the action of a vast rigid 

 press of oversweeping ice from the north and north 

 west, and their surfaces have a smooth, rounded, 

 overrubbed appearance, generally free from angles. 

 The intricate labyrinth of canals, channels, straits, 

 passages, sounds, narrows, etc., between the islands, 

 and extending into the mainland, of course mani- 



