178 E. R. Scidmore — Rece7d Explorations in Alaska. 



Professor Russell then made his great march across the pla- 

 teau of Malaspina glacier, which fronts the ocean for 60 miles, 

 all the Saint Elias ice streams uniting in this great ice mantle 

 which so awed Vancouver. 



Captain C. L. Hooper, of the revenue marine service, known 

 to geographers by his arctic voyages in search of the Jeannette, 

 touched at Yakutat bay in the autumn of 1890 to bring away 

 the members of the Russell expedition. Before leaving he at- 

 tempted some independent exploration. He took his vessel 

 through the bergs of Yakutat bay into Disenchantment bay, and 

 sailed 60 miles beyond the solid wall of ice that met Malaspina 

 a century before. Captain Hooper found there a magnificent 

 tide-water glacier, dropping jeweled bergs into the sea from all 

 its four-mile front of glittering ice cliffs. As a loyal member of 

 the National Geographic Society, he named this Hubbard 

 glacier and its guardian peak for the President of the National 

 Geographic Society. 



In 1891 Professor Russell took canoe after his exploration of 

 Malaspina glacier, and, following the shore-line of Disenchant- 

 ment bay, went another 60 miles further than Captain Hooper 

 had gone. He found that the bay extends as a long, narrow 

 inlet down to a broad plain reaching to the base of mount Fair- 

 weather, and his observations introduced many striking details 

 into that blank space of the maps. 



The height of mount Saint Elias, which has been estimated 

 all the way from 12,000 to 20,000 feet, was put at 18,000 plus or 

 minus 100 feet, by Professor Russell as the result of his triangu- 

 lations from the Icy bay beach. The field party of the United 

 States Coast and Geodetic Survey, consisting of Messrs Turner 

 and McGrath — and it is unnecessary to say that they, too, are 

 members of the National Geographic Society — devoted all of 

 the season of 1892 to observation, and their final determination 

 was 18,010 feet as the height of Bering's bolshoi sapka. 



Mount Saint Elias still awaits its conqueror, and Avhile the 

 National Geographic Society retains its interest in the un- 

 sealed, peak, it yields the right of way to the other societies 

 reported as anxious to send out expeditions to it, greeting 

 warmly even another expedition like that one from over the 

 seas which, learning at Sitka that there were no guides for the 

 region, went bear hunting and then to their homes. This 

 Society has with especial emphasis claimed that American geog- 



