30 THE ICE AGE IX NORTH AMERICA. 



are everywhere to be seen. Elliott estimates that, count- 

 ing great and small, there can not be less than five thousand 

 glaciers between Dixon's Entrance and the extremity of the 

 Alaskan Peninsula. 



The glaciers in the vicinity of Mt. St. Elias are the largest 

 anywhere to be found on the continent. Numerous single 

 glaciers, of which Seward is the largest, come down from the 

 mountain range and, becoming confluent, unite to form the 

 Malaspina glacier. This is a plateau of ice about 1,500 feet 

 in height stretching all along the southern base of the St. 

 Elias range for a distance of fifty miles, and covering an 

 area of about a thousand square miles. In Icy Bay the gla- 

 cier, comes down to sea-level, presenting a solid wall many 

 miles in extent, which is continually breaking off into ice- 

 bergs of great size. Far out upon the surface large forests 

 occur surrounded by glacial ice. These are supported upon 

 deep beds of gravel and sand which have been carried out by 

 mountain streams whose channels have changed from time 

 to time with the varying conditions of the surface of the ice. 

 Lakes of considerable size are also found upon the surface 

 at an altitude as high as 5,000 feet, with streams flowing 

 between the ice and the mountain side, illustrating, possibly, 

 the origin of many terraces of gravel on the flanks of moun- 

 tains in the glaciated region of the United States. Such are 

 to be noted on the flanks of both the Green and the Adiron- 

 dack mountains, deposited originally on the sides of the mass 

 of ice that filled the Champlain Valley. 



The glaciers of the St. Elias range are, however, mostly 

 confined to the south side which is exposed to the sea breezes. 

 Schwatka and Hayes who in 1892 made the tour of the 

 range, coming out at Copper River, found the country free 

 from glaciers and the climate so dry that they could comfort- 

 ably sleep out of doors. 



The glaciers about the upper end of Yakut at Bay are of 

 special interest because of the recent changes which have 



