GEOGRAPHY 263 



maps and photographs of these localities. The head of 

 Port Wells and a large branch coming in from the west 

 were explored and mapped. This western branch, shown 

 on the sketch map as Harriman Fiord, was in all prob- 

 ability closed at no very remote time by the front of 

 Barry Glacier, which extended across the fiord to the op- 

 posite shore; indeed, until our visit, it was still supposed 

 to be closed. In bringing our ship close to the glacier 

 front to obtain photographs of it, our party discovered 

 the opening between its point and the land, and as we 

 steamed through we saw unfolded before us a magnificent 

 vista of mountain and glacier. 



" We were the first that ever burst 

 Into that silent sea." 



It was sunset when we entered the portals, and through 

 the long twilight of the Arctic evening, we passed up the 

 fiord with mile-high mountains and great glaciers on 

 either hand. A little before midnight we reached its 

 head, where it is terminated by the front of Harriman 

 Glacier. A surveying party was landed there, and two 

 days were spent in making a reconnaissance of the fiord 

 and its surroundings. In this fiord, in a length of 15 

 miles, there are, besides a score of ' dead ' glaciers, five live 

 glaciers, four of them of the first magnitude, and all 

 reaching the sea and discharging bergs into it. 



The general direction of the coast, which trends north- 

 west to a point beyond Mount Saint Elias, gradually 

 swings to the westward, and beyond Prince William 

 Sound turns toward the southwest in the Kenai Peninsula. 

 Beyond the end of this are mountainous islands, Afognak 

 (594 square miles) and Kadiak (3,642 square miles) the 

 latter the largest island in Alaska waters. These continue 

 the line of Kenai Peninsula to the southwest, and are 

 separated by the waters of Cook Inlet and Shelikof Strait 



