Vegetation on Living Glaciers. 89 



discomforted, we abandoned our tents and retreated to the neigii- 

 boring forest and there took refuge in a cabin built near where 

 a coal seam outcrops, and remained until the storm had spent 

 its force. But I have anticipated, and must return to the thread 

 of my narrative. 



First Day's Tramp. 



The impressions received during the first day spent on shore 

 in a new country are always long remembered. Of several " first 

 days " in my own calendar, there are none that exceed in interest 

 my first excursions through the forest and over the hills west of 

 Yakutat bay. 



Every one about camp having plenty of work to occupy him 

 through the day, I started out early on the morning of July 2, 

 with only " Bud " and " Tweed " for companions. My objects 

 were to reconnoiter the country to the westward, to learn what I 

 could concerning its geology and glaciers, and to choose a line of 

 march toward Mount St. Elias. 



To the north of our camp, and about a mile distant, rose a 

 densely wooded hill about 300 feet high, with a curving outline, 

 convex southward. This hill had excited my curiosity on first 

 catching sight of the shore, and I decided to make it my first 

 study. Its position at the mouth of a steep gorge in the hills 

 beyond, cloAvn Avliich a small glacier flowed, suggested that it 

 might be an ancient moraine, deposited at a time when the ice- 

 stream ach'anced farther than at present. My surprise therefore 

 was great when, after forcing mv way through the dense thickets, 

 I reached the top of the hill, and found a large kettle-shaped de- 

 pression, the sides of which were solid avails of ice fifty feet high. 

 This showed at once that the sup])osed hill was really the ex- 

 tremity of a glacier, long dead and deeply buried beneath forest- 

 covered debris. In the bottom of the kettle-like depression lav 

 a pond of muddy water, and, as the ice-cliffs about the lakelet 

 melted in the warm sunlight, miniature avalanches of ice and 

 stones, mingled with sticks and bushes that had been under- 

 mined, frequently rattled down its sides and splashed into the 

 waters below. Further examination revealed the fact tliat scores 

 of such kettles are scattered over the surface of the l:)uried glacier. 

 This ice-stream is that designated the Galiano glacier on the ac- 

 companying map. 



Continuing on my way toward the mouth of the gorge in the 



