132 



ALASKA GLACIERS 



itself stands on a foreland carved from the rock, and this 

 foreland slopes gradually under the water of the sound or 

 bay. In detail the foreland is even more rugged than that 

 of Annette Island, and where it passes beneath the water 

 its eminences give rise to a great number of islets, which 

 stud the sound and form the natural breakwater of Sitka 

 Harbor. The relations of mountain, foreland and islands 

 are well shown in plate xvn (lower view) and figure 

 65, which represent Cape Baranof, a few miles south of 



Sitka. Here 

 also the in- 

 dicated base- 

 level has ap- 

 proximately 

 the height 

 of modern 

 sea-level. 



About 

 Wra nge 11 

 and Wran- 



gell Strait, a region on the landward side of the archi- 

 pelago, we saw more extensive tracts which probably 

 pertain to the same base-level. They stand somewhat 

 higher, averaging several hundred feet in altitude ; and 

 the parts we saw best have been so modified by glacial 

 erosion that original base-leveling might not have been 

 inferred without the aid of the Annette and Sitka exam- 

 ples. They are illustrated by the upper view in plate 



XVII. 



Near the south end of Lynn Canal, Douglas Island is 

 separated from the mainland by a narrow fiord, the Gas- 

 tineau Channel. Facing the channel, the island is flanked 

 by the ruins of a high rock terrace (fig. 66). A dozen 

 short valleys of the island join the fiord at the level of the 

 terrace, which descends southeastward from an estimated 



FIG. 65. OLD PENEPLAIN NEAR SITKA. 

 Seen from the timber line on Mount Verstovia. 



