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GEOLOGY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF YAKUTAT 



BAY. 



General Physiography. 



Yakutat bay is a deep indentation in the otherwise 

 almost unbroken concave stretch of coast line between 

 Cross sound and Controller bay. This smooth coast is 

 backed by the lofty St. Elias and Fairweather ranges, 

 the former reaching its culnrnating heights in Mount St. 

 Elias and Mount Logan. The mountains do not rise 

 directly from the sea, but are faced by a low foreland, or 

 coastal plain of glacial debris. Yakutat foreland broadens 

 from the southeast toward the northwest, and on the 

 northwest side of Yakutat bay is still occupied by the ice 

 plateau of the Malaspina piedmont glacier. Yakutat bay, 

 which lies about 40 miles (64 km.) southeast of Mount St. 

 Elias, pierces Yakutat foreland as a broad V-shaped bay. 

 On its west side the bay is bordered by a low foreland of 

 glacial gravels, which are still being deposited by streams 

 issuing from Malaspina and other existing glaciers that 

 lie behind the narrow strip of gravel and moraine. 



On the east and southeast side of Yakutat bay the 

 foreland forms the coast for about half its length only. 

 This part of the southeastern shore line is very irregular 

 and is fronted by an archipelago of low islands composed of 

 glacial debris. The northern half of the bay has for its 

 eastern shore the Brabazon hills, which rise abruptly to 

 elevations of 3,000 to 4,550 feet (900 to 1,380 m.). This 

 shore is straight and precipitous, and the mountain front 

 against which the foreland is built also rises abruptly along 

 a straight line which truncates the mountain spurs. 



Yakutat bay merges northward into a narrow arm 

 called Disenchantment bay, a fiord walled on both sides 

 by steep mountains. It extends from Points Funston 

 and Latouche on the south, to Hubbard glacier on the 

 north. Thus its head is an ice wall from 4 to 5 miles 

 (6 to 8 km.) in length, the terminus of the largest glacier 

 in the region except the piedmont ice mass of Malaspina 

 glacier. A second tidal glacier, the Turner, enters this 

 part of the fiord through a valley in its west wall. 



At Hubbard glacier the inlet turns sharply, and 

 thence on to its head it is called Russell fiord. Close by, 

 to the north, northeast, and northwest, mountains rise 



