HIGH MOUNTAIN DISTRICT 167 



land than toward the sea, and is contoured on the sea- 

 ward side by a terrace, which probably lies 200 to 300 

 feet above tide. At the single point of examination this 

 terrace contains marine beds overlain by glacial gravel, 

 and the ridge back of it appears to consist of unsorted 

 drift. The clays, where seen in section, are in part level 

 and in part disturbed (page 41). The completion of 

 the moraine ridge was subsequent to the deposition of 

 the clays. The undisturbed clays imply, by their posi- 

 tion, a higher stage of the ocean, and the overlying 

 gravels are more readily explained by assuming that the 

 sea-level was still high at the time of their deposition. It 

 seems to me probable that the moraine ridge was depos- 

 ited when the sea stood several hundred feet higher than 

 now against the land. 



Toward the southeast the ridge ends against the side 

 of the La Perouse Glacier, and the relations indicate that 

 the glacier is wearing it away . At one time it probably 

 extended considerably farther in that direction, but was so 

 low as to be overridden by the modern glacier and thus 

 subjected to erosion by it. 



Lituya Bay, a few miles up the coast toward the north- 

 west, penetrates the land for seven miles, dividing not only 

 the foreland but a low outer range of mountains. Within 

 the mountains its trough has fiord characters, and from the 

 walls of the mountain gateway run two morainic ridges, 

 parallel at first, but curving toward each other and de- 

 scending so as to unite under water at the entrance to the 

 bay. These were seen only from the ship's deck, but 

 their character is unmistakable. They are steeper within 

 than without, and their inner contours continue those of the 

 passage through the mountain ridge. They extend some- 

 what beyond the general line of the foreland, making a 

 pair of capes which embrace the outer part of the bay. 

 Close to the mountains they have an extreme height of 



