170 ALASKA GLACIERS 



Whether these old ramparts represent the limit of 

 Pleistocene ice at the time of maximum glaciation is a 

 question as to which there may be doubt, but I incline to 

 the view that the affirmative answer is the true one. So 

 far as I could judge from distant views, the rounding of 

 rock ridges and crests, characteristic of flooding by ice, 

 extends but a moderate distance above the surfaces of 

 modern glaciers on this part of the coast, and indicates 

 glaciers of about the same magnitude as are indicated by 

 the rampart moraines. 



On the northwest side of Dry Bay, which receives 

 Alsek River, a single fragment of a high rampart was 

 seen, and in association with it a terrace; but thence to 

 Yakutat Bay the broad foreland is low, its flatness being 

 relieved only by ridges of moderate height. About Yak- 

 utat Village and Ocean Cape, at the mouth of Yakutat 

 Bay, some of these ridges were seen to be morainic, 

 and it is supposed that the whole foreland is constituted 

 of glacial waste, chiefly of waterlaid gravel. If high ram- 

 parts were formed along this portion of the coast they 

 were afterward destroyed and the material carried sea- 

 ward by later advances of the ice. 



On the mountains near the head of Yakutat Bay are 

 fragmentary terraces at various heights ranging up to 

 1,200 or 1,500 feet, but as they face the bay rather than 

 the ocean, it is entirely possible that they are of glacial 

 rather than marine origin. Hanging valleys occur on the 

 eastern wall of Yakutat Bay and on the walls of Russell 

 and Nunatak fiords. One of these, near Nunatak Fiord, 

 is now occupied by a glacier which cascades for 1,000 

 feet down the steep wall of the fiord. The sills of these 

 valleys range from tide-level to a height of 1,500 feet or 

 more, and they tell of great erosion by the trunk glaciers. 

 The associated rounding of topographic angles is carried 

 higher above surfaces of modern glaciers than in the 



