IN GREEN ALASKA 



One of these glaciers, La Perouse, came quite down 

 to the sea, with a front a mile or more long and two 

 hundred feet high. At one point it had cut into the 

 edge of the forest, and shoved and piled up the trees 

 and soil as a heavy vehicle shoves and folds up the 

 turf. This, of course, showed that quite recently 

 the glacier had had a period of advance or augmen- 

 tation, and had encroached upon its banks. We 

 stopped an hour in front of it and put a party ashore, 

 but they learned little that could not be divined 

 from the ship. They found a heavy surf running, 

 and did not get through it on their return without an 

 acquaintance with the Pacific more intimate than 

 agreeable. All day long we were in sight of glaciers, 

 usually two or three at a time, some of them im- 

 mense, all the offspring of the great Fairweather 

 Range. Now and then the back of one some miles 

 inland would show above a low wooded ridire, a line 

 of white above an expanse of black, like the crest of 

 a river about to overflow its banks. One broad ice 

 slope I recall which, with its dark, straight lines of 

 moraine dividing it into three equal portions, sug- 

 gested a side-hill farm in winter with the tops of the 

 stone walls showing above the snow. It had a 

 friendly, home look to me. 



On the morning of the 19th we were at anchor 

 in front of the Indian village in Yakutat Bay. This 

 bay is literally like an arm, a huge arm of the sea, 

 very broad and heavy at the shoulder, much flexed 



57 



