THE ALPINE ZONE OF MOUNT ST. ELIAS. 77 



tempts to ascend it, and gave the excuse of being driven out of the 

 valley by savage and warlike natives. Recently it has been thor- 

 oughly explored, and the " savages " are found to be less than two 

 hundred inoffensive natives, who constitute the whole population of 

 this mysterious Atna or Maidnevskie region. But navigating the 

 river is terrific labor, inasmuch as it is a continuous, swift rapid 

 throughout its entire course. 



This river is a short, turbulent, brawling stream, less than two 

 hundred and fifty miles in length, but rising in the heart of a lofty 

 and mighty mass of volcanic mountains. It receives a score of im- 

 posing glaciers, which almost rival those of Icy Bay in Cross Sound. 

 The silt that these gelid rivers pour into its channel has given it a 

 deltoid mouth of extended and most intricate area. 



Triangulations made by an officer* of the Army last year de- 

 clare that Mount Wrangel is the loftiest peak on the North Ameri- 

 can continent. The feet of this magnificent volcanic dome are 

 washed by the forks of Copper River, which is eighteen thousand 

 six hundred and forty feet below the apex of its smoking cap. 

 Then the river at this point is more than two thousand feet above 

 sea-level, so the vast altitude of more than twenty thousand feet 

 for Mount Wrangel seems to be truthfully claimed. 



The soil which borders the abrupt banks of the Copper River is 

 entirely composed of glacial silt and gravel. It is moist and boggy 

 in the driest seasons, covered with rank growing grasses and dense 

 thickets of poplars, birches, and willows, that line the margins of 

 the stream. The higher lands, as they rise from the narrow valley, 

 are in turn clothed with a dense growth of spruce-forest, which 

 gradually fades out into russet-colored areas of rock-sphagnum as 

 the altitude increases to that point where nothing but the cold and 

 frost-defying lichen can cling alive to the weather-splintered sum- 

 mits of alpine heights above. 



Fish (salmon) are the chief reliance of these natives of Cop- 

 per River ; they depend almost wholly upon the annual running 

 of those creatures. The difficulty of hunting is so great that the 



the labor of dogs they turned upon their white oppressors, naturally. The 

 massacre of Seribniekov and his party in this manner made the Indians very 

 restless and determined in their opposition to further intercourse with the 

 Russians. The memory of hostility has, however, died out, and nothing of 

 the kind was shown to our people last year as they charted the valley and 

 river. Lieutenant H. T. Allen. 



