PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND Jl 



COLUMBIA GLACIER 



Between Yakutat Bay and Prince William Sound we 

 made no landing, and our course lay too far from shore 

 for observations of value on the glaciers. 



Prince William Sound is an extensive and intricate 

 body of water, penetrating a mountain district. Its numer- 

 ous islands and peninsulas are mountain peaks or ranges, 

 and many of its inner arms and passages have the char- 

 acter of glacial troughs or fiords. Among the mountains 

 of the mainland at the east and west are many small gla- 

 ciers, and a great mountain mass at the north supports 

 extensive neves from which magnificent ice rivers flow to 

 its northern arms. It was my good fortune to be landed at 

 the mouth of one of these ice rivers and, in company 

 with Palache, Coville, and Curtis, to spend several days in 

 its study. Many photographs were made and some map- 

 ping was done. 



In June, 1794, this glacier was seen from the mouth of 

 the associated bay by Whidby, one of Vancouver's officers. 

 Vancouver says: "To the eastward of this is another 

 bay of rather larger dimensions, with an island in its 

 northeast corner, . . . terminated by a solid body of com- 

 pact elevated ice, similar to that which has been before 

 described . . . ; as they passed the eastern bay they 

 again heard the thunder-like noise, and found that it had 

 been produced by the falling of the large pieces of ice 

 that appeared to have been very recently separated from 

 the mass extending in vast abundance across the passage 

 . . . , insomuch that it was with great difficulty the boats 

 could effect a passage." l 



The bay and island appear on a map in Vancouver's 

 atlas (see fig. 42). The bay (without the island) is rep- 



1 A Voyage of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean and round the world, etc., Capt 

 George Vancouver, vol. v, London, pp. 316-317, 1801. 



