4-oo The National Geographic Magazine 



passed by none in beauty and impressive- 

 ness, although but 12,000 feet high. 

 Its effectiveness is due to its situation 

 well out in the Copper River plain and 

 to its isolation. 



The Wrangell Mountains lie between 

 the meridians of 142° and 145° west 

 longitude and the parallels of 61 ° 20' 

 and 62 ° 30' north latitude. The 144th 

 meridian and the 62d parallel intersect 

 just east of the crater of the central 

 peak — Mount Wrangell. 



The group is as distinct in form from 

 the neighboring ranges north and south 

 of it as it is in origin. The Chugatch 

 Mountains, which lie between the Wran- 

 gell Mountains and the coast, represent 

 an uplifted and eroded plain, and this 

 origin is now recorded in the level sky- 

 line presented by the tops of the indi- 

 vidual peaks and ridges which make up 

 the range as a whole. 



The Alaskan Mountains to the north- 

 west owe their relief to profound frac- 

 turing of the earth's crust, the rocks to 

 the north of the break being lifted 

 high above those to the south. Ero- 

 sion, acting on this broken edge, has 

 carved the serrate crest as we now see 

 it, leaving the areas of harder rock in 

 high relief. 



The Wrangell Mountains, on the 

 other hand, are for the most part masses 

 of lava and volcanic mud, which have 

 been piled up on an earlier surface, of 

 considerable diversity, burying the old 

 land forms and substituting for them 

 the present splendid group. 



The heights rise from the valley of 

 the Copper River, which along the west 

 base of the mountains stands at from 

 500 to 1,500 feet above sea- level. This 

 valley is a gently sloping, moss- covered, 

 lake-dotted plain, in somber green, ac- 

 centuating by its level character and its 

 dull coloring the great heights and the 

 dazzling white of the adjacent summits. 



Indian travelers say that Mount Ev- 

 erest is dwarfed by the elevation of the 

 land mass from which it rises and by 



the surrounding close-set peaks, which 

 are but little lower than Everest itself. 

 At Yakutat, one is in doubt at first as 

 to which of the great summits in sight 

 is St Elias. Eogan's superior height 

 was recognized only after the angles to 

 its top were solved. McKinley alone 

 stands out in solitary grandeur. But 

 each of the four striking peaks of the 

 Wrangell group has its own individ- 

 uality and seems to accentuate, not to 

 dwarf, its neighbors. Each, as it were, 

 serves as a scale which helps the eye to 

 comprehend the magnitude of all. 



The shapes of the peaks are the com- 

 bined products of vulcanism and erosion. 

 Either predominating gives a' distinct 

 type. Intermediate forms are due to 

 the partial ascendency of one or the 

 other force. Mount Wrangell owes its 

 outlines almost wholly to volcanic ac- 

 tion. Erosion has modified this original 

 form but little. Mount Drum's con- 

 tour, on the contrary, is that due en- 

 tirely to denuding agencies. The orig- 

 inal built-up form is gone. Mount San- 

 ford is a volcanic dome, one-half of 

 which has been mined away by a sap- 

 ping glacier. Mount Blackburn has 

 been etched on all sides until only its 

 summit has the gentle original slope ; 

 all below this is the precipitous wall 

 due to undercutting ice. 



Wrangell is a great flat cone nearly 

 three miles high and eight times as 

 broad. Its gently arched surface is a 

 glistening snow-field, broken here and 

 there by a smoking rock or touched at 

 the summit by a smudge of ash from 

 the crater which sends up intermit- 

 tently rolling columns of smoke and 

 vapor. From its eastern slope flows 

 Nabesna glacier, a frozen river fifty 

 miles in length. On its western face, 

 in a shallow valley, a dozen jets of 

 steam may be seen on a still morning 

 issuing from as many vents, and the 

 glaciers from this basin are black with 

 the breath of the mountain. 



It is not recorded that the summit 



