June, 1834. glaciers. 283 



from one vast body of ice. In the Canal of the Mountains, 

 for instance, no less than nine descend from a mountain, the 

 whole side of which, according to the chart, is covered by a 

 glacier of the extraordinary length of twenty-one miles, and 

 with an average breadth of a mile and a half. It must not 

 be supposed that the glacier merely ascends some valley for 

 the twenty-one miles, but it extends apparently at the same 

 height for that length, parallel to the sound; and here 

 and there sends down an arm to the sea-coast.* There are 

 other glaciers having a similar structure and position, with a 

 length of ten and fifteen miles. 



I will now specify a few of the more remarkable cases, 

 taken from Captain King's paper, to which I have so often 

 referred. The canal of St. Andrew is said by Lieutenant 

 Skyring to be " suddenly and boldly closed by tremendous 

 and astonishing glaciers." The highest mountain in this 

 part (Mount Stokes) was ascertained during our ascent of 

 the river of St. Cruz to be 6200 feet, and this certainly 

 exceeds considerably the height of the general range. About 

 ninety miles to the northward. Sir G. Eyre's Sound, in the 

 latitude of Paris, has its several arms terminated by glaciers. 

 Mr. Bynoe, the surgeon of the Beagle, who accompanied the 

 boat when this part was surveyed, informs me that about 

 mid-channel, and more than twenty miles from the head of 

 the sound, there were great numbers of floating masses of 

 ice. Standing in the boat he supposes he saw about fifty : 

 he, together with four of the boat's crew, landed on one, 

 which although only two or three feet above the surface of 

 the water, felt quite steady, and easily supported their 

 weight. On the surface, in the central part, a mass of 

 granite, of an angular form, was partly embedded ; and the 



* I may remark that in the chart, the greater number of the creeks 

 which receive the glaciers, have crosses drawn in front, which signify 

 projecting masses of rock. After what we have seen in the Beagle 

 channel, I suspect that they are detached masses brought down by the 

 overwhelming force of the glaciers. 



