BERING SEA 



191 



partial disintegration. They run straight for long dis- 

 tances. The chief agencies competent to produce such 

 features are faulting and glacial sculpture, and in this 

 case glacial sculpture appears to me the more probable 

 agent, although subsequent weathering seems to have de- 

 stroyed those minor details of configuration which one 

 naturally seeks as confirmatory evidence. 



There are two accessory features which lend support to 

 the hypothesis 

 of glaciation. 

 In the far dis- 

 tance, at the 

 head of the 

 bay, we could 

 see that its 

 trough is con- 

 nected with 

 two or more 

 land valleys, 

 and it was evi- 

 dent that the 



valley most nearly in the direct line of prolongation is dis- 

 tinctly U-form in cross-profile and has walls of simple con- 

 tour. The other feature is a niche, high on the wall of the 

 fiord, having the form of a cirque or hanging valley (fig. 93). 

 In this case I attach little weight to the testimony of the 

 hanging valley, because it has no companion on the long 

 line of cliffs, and therefore may possibly be a simulative 

 form, determined by local peculiarities of rock texture; 

 but the distant valley is distinctively glacial in habit. 



It seems to me on the whole probable that the fiords 

 of this coast contained Pleistocene glaciers of large size, 

 which extended farther seaward than the general line of 

 the present coast, but that the spaces between the fiords 

 were not covered by ice. 



FIG. 93. HANGING VALLEY ON WALL OF PLOVER BAY. 

 Figure 92 gives an oblique view of the same wall. 



