36 TEE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



of June, other valleys had been seen strongly resembling this, 

 but none were so extensive, nor was the surface of any of them 

 so clean, most of them appearing to be very dirty. I do not, 

 however, mean to assert that these inclined planes of ice must 

 have been formed by the passing of inland waters thus into 

 the ocean, as the elevation of them, which must be many 

 hundred yards above the level of the sea, and their having 

 been doomed for ages to perpetual frost, operate much against 

 this reasoning ; but one is naturally led, on contemplating any 

 phenomenon out of the ordinary course of nature, to form 

 some conjecture, and to hazard some opinion as to its origin, 

 which on the present occasion is rather offered for the purpose 

 of describing its appearance, than accounting for the cause of 

 its existence.* 



Westward from Mt. St. Elias the lofty semicircular ranges 

 culminating in Mount Wrangell and Mount McKinley, both 

 of which attain an elevation of 20,000 feet (the former being 

 a. live volcano), abound with glaciers beside which those of 

 the Swiss Alps would seem insignificant. While from the 

 flanks of the Chugatch Range immense streams of ice descend 

 to Prince William Sound, and add greatly to the gloomy gran- 

 deur of its scenery. Glaciers are also numerous in the Kenai 

 and Alaskan peninsulas as far to the westward as longitude 

 162°, and one even has been observed upon the island of 

 Unalaska. 



Beyond these ranges the broad valleys of the Kuskovim 

 and the Yukon rivers are chiefly characterized by sparsely 

 covered timber areas and tundras in many respects similar to 

 the Arctic litoral of Siberia, where the soil is frozen to a 

 great depth, the heat of the short summer being able to melt 

 scarcely more than a few inches below the surface, sections in 

 many places showing alternate layers of earth and pure ice. 

 In Alaska, however, a few glaciers again appear in the high- 

 lands of the far north. 



At Eschscholtz Bay, on Kotzebue Sound, in latitude 66° 



♦"Voyage of Discovery around the World/' vol. v, pp. 312-314, 358-360. 



