CHAPTER XVII 



GLACIERS AND WOODED ISLANDS 



OUR ship put in at Latouche, Valdez and Cordova, 

 took on copper ore at EUamar and Fidalgo Bay 

 in Prince William Sound, gave us a glimpse of a 

 dead boom town at Katalla, and then passed out into 

 the Pacific headed for Yakutat. 



We now approached the central part of the remark- 

 able glacial belt of Alaska, which pivots about the great 

 upthrust of Mt. St. EUas and its neighboring peaks. 



The glaciers of the Pacific coast of Alaska are ex- 

 traordinary for their number and their size. For a thou- 

 sand miles the main collection extends along the slope 

 of the coast range, and the central portion, between four 

 hundred and five hundred miles long and eighty to one 

 hundred miles wide, has been described as one great field 

 of ice and snow. Thousands of glaciers from one to fif- 

 teen miles in length fill the crevices of the mountains. 

 More than a hundred almost reach the sea. The Valdez 

 Glacier, which hes back of the town of that name in 

 Prince William Sound, is thirty miles long and rises at 

 an altitude of 5,000 feet. Many glaciers discharge into 

 rivers which carry the ice to the sea. Of these the Childs 

 is a famous example. It flows into the Copper River 

 above Cordova and discharges into the swift stream ice- 

 bergs which have been likened to a block of city houses. 

 At frequent intervals during the entire summer the dis- 

 charges take place with reports resembling heavy 

 artillery. 



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