ALASKA 



136 



ALASKA 



\ DOMINION 

 ^ 



OUTLINE MAP OP ALASKA 



Principal cities, mineral deposits, rivers, international boundary and highest point of land in 

 the peninsula are shown. 



which vary from 50 to 200 miles in width. The 

 long strip between British Columbia and the 

 sea, which is called Southeast Alaska, or the 

 Panhandle, has the Coast Range. This has no 

 well-defined watershed, but has many peaks 

 from 5,000 to 8,000 feet kigh. The Alexander 

 Archipelago is the remains of a separate, partly 

 submerged chain of mountains, but is usually 

 included in the Coast Range. North of the 

 Chilkat River and Cross Sound is the Saint 

 Elias Range, which has its western end in the 

 Kenai Peninsula. This range has many famous 

 peaks Mount Fairweather (15,290 feet), Mount 

 Vancouver (15,666 feet), Mount Wrangell, an 

 active volcano (17,500 feet), and Mount Saint 

 Elias (18,024 feet), whose summit is on the 

 international boundary. The Panhandle and 

 the Saint Elias Range have thousands of gla- 

 ciers, which fill the upper valleys. Many of 

 them reach to the sea, into which they dis- 

 charge huge icebergs, and perhaps a hundred 

 or more are separated from the coast only by 

 a terminal moraine (see GLACIER). The great- 

 est of all these glaciers is the Malaspina, whose 

 area is nearly one-tenth that of all Switzer- 

 land, but the best known is probably the Muir 

 Glacier (both of which see). 



The third of the Pacific ranges is the Aleu- 

 tian, the backbone of the Alaska Peninsula. 

 It ends in the partly sunken Aleutian Islands 

 (which see). The Alaska Range lies a little 

 farther inland, and like the Aleutian Range, 

 has a number of active volcanoes. Its south- 

 ern end is not noteworthy but in the north it 

 culminates in Mount McKinley (which see), 

 the loftiest peak in North America. 



2. The Central Plateau, or Continental 

 Alaska. North and east of the coast mountains 

 is a vast plateau, almost the whole of which is 

 included in the basin of the Yukon River. 

 Only a low watershed divides the Yukon basin 

 from the Kuskokwim, the second river in size. 

 The plateau extends practically across the ter- 

 ritory from east to west and has an average 

 width of 200 miles. Near the base of the 

 mountains it has an elevation of 4,000 to 5,000 

 feet, but gradually declines to 1,000 feet, near 

 Bering Sea. Much of the country is a rolling 

 plain, cut into many tablelands by the deep, 

 broad valleys of the rivers. 



3. The Rocky Mountains. East and north 

 of the central plateau are the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. On the east they lie almost wholly in 

 Canada, but near the Arctic Ocean the range 



