A MONTH WITH THE MUIR GLACIER. 59 



during the earlier part of this century the ice filled the inlet 

 several miles farther down than now. And there can be 

 scarcely less doubt that recently the glacier filled the inlet, 

 2,500 feet above its present level near the front ; for the 

 glacial debris and stride are very marked and fresh on both 

 mountains flanking the upper part of the inlet up to that 

 height, and the evidences of an ice-movement in the direction 

 of the axis of the bay are not wanting as high as 3,700 feet 

 on the eastern mountain, where I found fresh striae running 

 north by south, and directly past the summit, which rises 

 1,000 or 1,500 feet still higher, just to the east. 



To this circumstantial evidence may be added what seems 

 to be an irresistible inference from the notes of Vancouver's 

 party in 1791:. This party entered Cross Sound in small 

 boats, and penetrated as far as the head of Lynn Canal and 

 Juneau. 



The following is the record. We should premise, how- 

 ever, that the point referred to as seven miles from Point 

 Dundas is probably that at the southeastern corner of Gla- 

 cier Bay, and the " spacious inlet lying in an east-southeast " 

 direction is probably the channel extending toward Chatham 

 Strait. But certainly, no one looking from that point at the 

 present time would speak, as this report does, of this inlet as 

 seeming to be " entirely occupied by one compact sheet of 

 ice as far back as the eye could distinguish." Xor would 

 the observer at the present time say that, to the north and 

 east, the two large open bays formed by the shores of the 

 continent seemed to be " terminated by compact solid mount- 

 ains of ice rising perpendicular from the water's edge." 

 The ice is now full twenty-five miles away from that point, 

 and the ice-front is not sufficiently prominent to make such 

 an impression as this. It is hence more than probable that, 

 at that time, the ice extended down nearly to the mouth of 

 the bay. 



The morning of the 12th [July], though unpleasant, was 

 rather more favorable to their pursuit, which was still greatly 



