Muir Glacier 



44 i 



arranged, the distance from Washing- 

 ton rendering this necessary. The rec- 

 ords and survey sheets are sent to this 

 office, and preliminary charts are pre- 

 pared and published by lithography in 

 Manila. 



In this office there have also been 

 compiled and published a series of seven 

 pamphlets of Sailing Directions for the 

 Coasts of the Philippine Islands, and 

 from time to time there are published 

 Notices to Mariners, giving new infor- 

 mation of immediate importance to nav- 

 igation, as dangers discovered, changes 

 in aids to navigation, and other correc- 

 tions to charts. 



The computations are revised and car- 

 ried as far as may be needed for imme- 

 diate use, the soundings are plotted or 

 examined, and the drawings are reduced 

 to the scale required for publication. 

 Besides the American experts in charge 

 of each part of the work, ten Filipino 

 draftsmen and one Filipino computer 

 are employed. The almost entire lack 

 of technical education in the Philippines 

 has been a barrier to testing the ability 

 of the natives in the survey work in the 

 field. 



To furnish a knowledge of the coasts 



and adjacent waters that will be satis- 

 factory to an enlightened nation will 

 require a large amount of coast-survey 

 work in the Philippine Islands. While 

 considerable information exists, a care- 

 ful examination of it proves that for 

 only limited areas does it approximate 

 completeness. Many parts of the coast 

 have been only roughly sketched. A 

 glance at the map of the islands shows 

 that the natural highways of this region 

 are on the water, so that a large part of 

 the commerce of the islands will always 

 be carried by water. A few geograph- 

 ical facts will emphasize these condi- 

 tions. The islands have a general coast 

 line of about 11,444 statute miles, or 

 double that of the main part of the 

 United States, while the total area is 

 115,026 square miles, or less than that 

 of New Mexico. There is a mile of 

 coast line to every 10 miles of area, 

 while in the United States the propor- 

 tion is 1 to 555. There are nearly 1 ,700 

 islands having names and it is possible 

 to count 3,000 islands and islets on the 

 charts. Even the larger land masses 

 are so elongated in figure that no point 

 in any island is more than 60 miles dis- 

 tant from some part of the coast. 



MUIR GLACIER 



FOR four years it has not been pos- 

 sible for the excursion steamers 

 visiting Glacier Bay to closely 

 approach the Muir Glacier. As that 

 glacier has been the Mecca of many of 

 the Alaska tourists, the failure to see the 

 glacier at close quarters has been a 

 grievous disappointment. During the 

 season of 1899 the conditions were un- 

 changed, and the boats made their en- 

 trance into Muir Inlet and landed their 

 passengers as usual, but with the sea- 

 sou of 1900 and the following seasons 

 they were able to get no nearer than 

 from five to ten miles below the usual 



landing. From that distance it could 

 be seen that great changes had occurred 

 in the appearance of the front of the 

 glacier, and that the ice had receded to 

 a considerable extent. 



Desiring to know the extent of the 

 changes, on May 5, 1903, Mr Case, a 

 photographer, of Skagway, Alaska, and 

 myself left Skagway for Glacier Bay 

 in an open boat. We followed in the 

 bay, in all probability, close on the track 

 of Professor Muir and Reverend Young 

 when on their exploration trip in 1879. 

 Going through the passages between 

 the Beardslee Islands and keeping near 



