Plains and Snow-Fields. 131 



contrast to the green moss-covered i)lateau country toward the 

 north. The range here occupies a belt about eighty miles in 

 width from north to south. Mr RusSell saw the same region 

 from the eastern flanks of mount St Elias, and he describes it as' 

 "A vast snow-covered region, limitless in its expanse, through 

 which hundreds and probably thousands of barren, angular 

 mountain peaks project. There was not a stream, not a lake, 

 not a vestige of vegetation in sight. A more desolate or a more 

 utterly lifeless land one never beheld. Vast, smooth snow sur- 

 faces, without crevasses or breaks, stretched away to seemingly 

 limitless distances, diversified only l)y jagged and angular moun- 

 tain peaks."* 



Drainage. 



The Taku, like the Stikine and otlier rivers toward the south, 

 is flowing in a deeply buried channel excavated when the land 

 stood relatively much higher than at present. Its valley, which 

 is a continuation of Taku inlet, is from one to two miles wide 

 with steep sides rising in many places almost vertically from 

 3,000 to 5,000 feet. The river, interrupted by many sand bars 

 and low, wooded islands, meanders over a gravel floodplain be- 

 tween the high walls of the valley. Its current is rapid and it 

 is transporting to the inlet great quantities of sediment from its 

 upper course. Beyond the junction of the northern and southern 

 forks, Avhich may be regarded as approximately at the eastern 

 limit of the Coast range, the valley sides are rather steep to an 

 elevation of about 1,500 feet from the river, while above that 

 elevation the slopes are gentle to broad, rounded summits of the 

 interior jDlateau. The upper branches of the Taku flow in open 

 valleys from 3,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level, indicating a long 

 period of erosion during which the land stood at a much lower 

 level than at present. . Similar broad valleys at the upper courses 

 of many rivers in British Columbia have been referred by Dr 

 Dawson t to long-continued erosion in middle Tertiary time, and 

 it is probable that the same conditions prevailed far to the north- 



* Mount St. Elias and its Glaciers: Am. Jour. Sci., 3d series, vol. xliii, 

 1892, p. 171. 



t On the later Physiographical Geolo,o;y of the Rocky Mountain Region 

 in Canada, with special reference to changes in elevation and to the his- 

 tory of the Glacial Period : Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. viii, sec. iv, 1890, 

 pp. 17-21. 



