570 p. S. SMITH GLACIATION IN NORTHWESTERN ALASKA 



seriously considered. If, however, past conditions are to be interpreted 

 in the light of the present, it requires no great stretch of the imagination 

 to picture the polar ice, which now bars this coast from nearly the middle 

 of September to almost the first of July, having been proportionally as 

 much more extensive in the past as the now vanished alpine glaciers un- 

 doubtedly were. 



