GLACIERS OS THE PACIFIC COAST. 25 



Three great rivers interrupt the mountain barrier of 

 British Columbia facing the Pacific — the Fraser, the Skeena, 

 and the Stickeen — and the interior is penetrated for some 

 distance by innumerable fiords. The Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 road follows the course of the Fraser for a long distance, and 

 passes within sight of glaciers of considerable extent, and 

 every fiord receives the drainage of numerous decaying gla- 

 ciers. But it is not until reaching the Stickeen River, in 

 Alaska, in latitude 57°, that glaciers begin to appear which 

 are both easily accessible and large enough to invite pro- 

 tracted study. The water coming into the sound from the 

 Stickeen River is heavily charged with glacial mud, which 

 spreads itself out over a great expanse. An extensive delta, 

 forming almost the only arable land in southeastern Alaska, 

 has been built up by the deposit at the mouth of this river. 

 The earliest accurate information obtained concerning these 

 glaciers is that gathered by Mr. William P. Blake in 1863. 

 According to him, "there are four large glaciers and several 

 smaller ones visible within a distance of sixty or seventy miles 

 from the mouth" of the river. The second of these larger 

 ones has attracted most attention. This "sweeps grandly 

 out into the valley from an opening between high mountains 

 from a source that is not visible. It ends at the level of the 

 river in an irregular bluff of ice, a mile and a half or two 

 miles in length, and about one hundred and fifty feet high. 

 Two or more terminal moraines protect it from the direct 

 action of the stream. What at first appeared as a range of 

 ordinary hills along the river, proved on landing to be an 

 ancient terminal moraine, crescent-shaped, and covered with 

 a forest. It extends the full length of the front of the 

 glacier. v * 



This glacier presents many difficulties to explorers. A 

 small party of Russian officers once attempted its explora- 

 tion, and were never heard from again. Mr. Blake re- 

 ports that, as usual with receding glaciers, a considerable 



* "American Journal of Science," vol. xciv, 1867, pp. 96-101. 



