FEATURES OF THE SITKAN REGION. 19 



everywhere abrupt and the water deep. The entire front of this 

 lofty coast-range chain, that forms the eastern Alaskan boundaiy 

 from the summit of Mt. St. Elias to the mouth of Portland Canal, 

 is glacier-bearing to-day, and you can scarcely push your way to the 

 head of any canon, great or small, without finding an eternal ice- 

 sheet anchored there : careful estimation places the astonishing ag- 

 gregate of over 5,000 livmg glaciers, of greater or less degree, that 

 are silently but forever ti'avelliug down to the sea, in this region. 



Those congealed rivers which take their origin in the flanks of 

 Mt. Fairweather * and Mt. Crillouf are simply unrivalled in frigid 

 grandeu.r by anything that is lauded in Switzerland or the Hima- 

 layas, though the vast bulk of the Greenland ice-sheets is, of course, 

 not even feebly approximated by them ; the waters of the channels 

 which lead up from the ocean to the feet of these large glaciers of 

 Cross Sound and Lj'nn Canal, are full of bobbing icebergs that 

 have been detached from the main sheet, in every possible shape 

 and size — a detachment which is taking place at intervals of every 

 few moments, giving rise, in so doing, to a noise like parks of ar- 

 tillery ; but, of course, these bergs are very, very small compared 

 with those of Greenland, and only a few ever escape from the intri- 

 cate labyrinth of fiords which are so characteristic of this Sitkan 

 district. An ice-sheet comes down the canon, and as it slides into 

 the water of the canal or bay, wherever it may be, the pressure ex- 

 erted by the buoyancy of the partially submerged mass causes it to 

 crack off in the wildest lines of cleavage, and rise to the surface in 

 hundreds and thousands of glittering fragments ; or again, it may 

 slide out over the water on a rocky bed, and, as it advances, break " 

 oflf and fall down in thundering salvos, that ring and echo in the 

 gloomy canons with awe-inspiring repetition. At the head and 

 around the .sides of a large indentation of Cross Sound there are 

 no less than five immense, complete glaciers, which take their origin 

 between Fairweather and Crillon Mountains, each one reaching and 

 discharging into tide-water : here is a vast, a colossal glacier in full 

 exhibition, and so easy of access that the most delicate woman 

 could travel to, and view it, since an ocean-steamer can push to its 

 very sea-walls, Avithout a moment's serious interruption, where from 

 her decks may be scanned the singular spectacle of an icy river from 

 three to eight miles wide, fifty miles long, and varying in depth 



* 14, 708 feet. f 13,400 feet. 



