GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 29 



level. Lieutenant Schwatka reports four glaciers of consider- 

 able size in the course of this short portage between Chilkat 

 and Lake Lindeman.* The vast region through which the 

 Yukon ilows to the north of these mountains is not known 

 to contain any extensive glaciers. But the ground remains 

 perpetually frozen at a short depth below the surface. Russell 

 reports that in many places cliffs of ice abut upon the border 

 of the Yukon on whose surface is a sufficient depth of soil 



Fig. 19.— Davidson Glacier, near Chilkat. Alaska, latitude 59° 45'. The mountains are 

 from five thousand to seven thousand feet high ; the gorge about three quarters of 

 a mile wide ; the front of the glacier, three miles ; the terminal moraine, about two 

 hundred and fifty feet high. (View from two miles distant.) 



to support dense evergreen forests. Since the discovery of 

 gold in the region a considerable population has entered, and 

 certain forms of agriculture have begun to flourish. 



From Cross Sound, about latitude 58° and longitude 136° 

 west from Greenwich, to the Alaskan Peninsula, the coast is 

 bordered by a most magnificent semicircle of mountains, 

 opening to the south, and extending for more than a thousand 

 miles. Throughout this whole extent, glaciers of large size 



* "Science," vol. iii (February 22, 1884), pp. 220-227. 



