1 66 ALASKA GLACIERS 



The terrace about Gastineau Channel is rather con- 

 spicuous at Douglas, where the forest has been removed, 

 and was detected at several points where the forest still 

 stands, but I searched in vain for its continuation about 

 the shores of Lynn Canal and Cross Sound. 



HIGH MOUNTAIN DISTRICT 



Between Cross Sound and Prince William Sound are 

 high mountains visible from the sea. They are much 

 loftier than those of the Inland Passage district, and 

 probably comprise a number of distinguishable ranges, 

 though their system is not yet known. A mass cul- 

 minating in Mount St. Elias (18,100 feet), west of Yak- 

 utat Bay, has been called the St. Elias Alps, and this 

 name is sometimes made to include the whole chain. A 

 more easterly portion, culminating in Mount Fairweather 

 (15,000 feet), is sometimes distinguished as the Fair- 

 weather Range. Opposite these mountains the coast line 

 is comparatively simple, being interrupted by fiords at a 

 few points only and having no important islands. From 

 Icy Cape westward the mountain base is bordered by a 

 low foreland, narrow at first, but broadening to ten miles 

 at Alsek River and fifteen miles at Yakutat Bay and 

 beyond. 



Many alpine glaciers now creep down the face of the 

 range and unite in plateau masses on the foreland, a 

 few of them spreading to the sea. The foreland bears 

 also a system of ridges, of peculiar type, which are be- 

 lieved to be morainic and of Pleistocene age. Mention 

 has already been made of one of these in describing the 

 La Perouse Glacier. The ridge against which that glacier 

 crowds, at the point of our visit, runs parallel to the coast 

 for about seven miles and has an actual height of 1,000 

 feet, as indicated on the map of the Canadian Boundary 

 Commission. It is nearly straight, is steeper toward the 



