The General Geography of Alaska 



8 



the cliffs of the gorges the mountains 

 rise by gentle slopes to the base of the 

 peaks. The cross profile of each gorge 

 and its surroundings is that of ice, not 

 of water candng. It is the work of 

 channel erosion, not of valley erosion, 

 and the channels were filled with ice. 

 It is a colossal exhibition of the eroding 

 power of water in solid form. From 

 Lynn Canal, a fiord 90 miles in length, 

 there have been carried off and dumped 

 into the Pacific more than 200 cubic 

 miles of rock, and from all the fiords of 

 southeastern Alaska the amount re- 

 moved may be safely estimated at thou- 

 sands of cubic miles. The ice has but 

 recently retreated from these gorges, for 

 since its retreat w^ater has done but little 

 work, although the region is one of 

 heavy rainfall and extremely steep 

 slopes, where aqueous erosion is at a 

 maximum. 



Of the great glaciers which occupied 

 this region a short time ago, only trifiing 

 fragments remain in the upper ends of 

 the gorges, and comparatively few now 

 reach the sea. I use the word trifling, 

 however, merely in relation to their for- 

 mer extent, for absolutely these rem- 

 nants are not at all trifling. The ice cap 

 of Greenland and the glaciers of the 

 Antarctic continent alone exceed them in 

 magnitude. All the glaciers of Switzer- 

 land together would form but a few riv- 

 ulets of ice on the surface of the great 

 Muir Glacier, and the Muir is but one 

 of many glaciers of equal magnitude. 

 Indeed, on this coast are scores of live 

 glaciers, glaciers which reach the sea, 

 presenting to it fronts of ice or ice walls 

 rising from the sea bottom to 200 or 300 

 feet above its surface, and several miles 

 in length, and which drop bergs, with 

 thundering sound, into the sea. Of 

 such glaciers no fewer than 30 were vis- 

 ited by the Harriman Expedition, and 

 many others are known. Of dead gla- 

 ciers, or those whose fronts do not reach 

 the sea, hundreds are known. 



The mountains increase in height to- 



ward the northwest, but not at a uniform 

 rate. They culminate near the coast in 

 the Fairweather Range, south of Yakutat 

 Bay, at about 16,000 feet, and in the 

 St. Elias Range, west of Yakutat Bay, 

 at 18,000 feet or more. These ranges 

 are not regular or continuous. While 

 they follow the general direction of the 

 coast, toward the northwest, they are 

 extremely broken, being cut through 

 on the mainland by many fiords and by 

 streams flowing into the heads of the 

 fiords. The Stikine, which reaches the 

 coast near Wrangell, heads far to the 

 eastward, in Canada, and cuts across 

 the entire breadth of the Cordillera sys- 

 tem. The same is true of the Taku 

 River, which, flowing through Taku 

 Inlet, reaches the coast near Juneau ; 

 and of the Chilkat, which flows into 

 one of the heads of Eynn Canal. Alsek 

 River heads far to the north, in Canada, 

 and cuts a gorge through the great Fair- 

 weather Range. These are the main 

 rivers of this coast, but there are many 

 smaller ones, which head either beyond 

 the mountains to the north and east, or 

 far within them. 



The coast line from Cross Sound north- 

 westward to Prince William Sound is 

 comparatively smooth and simple, con- 

 taining no inlet of magnitude, with the 

 exception of Yakutat Ba^^ As far as 

 Yakutat Bay it is closely bordered by the 

 Fairweather Range, which rises abruptly 

 from 10,000 to 16,000 feet almost from 

 the water's edge, bearing on the summit 

 a succession of peaks and covered with 

 glaciers along both slopes. A day long 

 to be remembered was that on which 

 our ship steamed, between 8 o'clock in 

 the morning and 6 in the afternoon, from 

 Yakutat Bay to Cross Sound, along the 

 entire front of this range outlined against 

 a cloudless sky. 



Yakutat Bay is a deep funnel-shaped 

 bay, penetrating far into the heart of 

 the mountain region. At its apparent 

 head it turns sharply upon itself to the 

 south and extends back nearly to the 



