La G. F. Wright—The Muir Glacier. 
twenty feet above their roots. This has been done by some 
force that has battered them from the upper side at the point of 
fracture. Evidently cakes of ice brought down by the streams 
indicated in the map, when flowing at various higher levels 
than now, have accomplished this result. For the trunks in 
the main stream were battered on the north side, while those in 
the gully worn by the lateral stream were battered from the 
west side. 
From this description the explanation of this buried forest 
would seem to be evident enough. At some period, when the 
ice occupied only the upper part of the valley to the north of 
this point, forests grew over all the space lying southwest of the 
present ice-front. As the ice advanced ,to near its present posi- 
tion, the streams carrying off the surplus water from the western 
half of the advancing glacier were suddenly turned into the 
protected space occupied by this forest, where they deposited 
their loads of sand and gravel. <A cause very likely combining 
to facilitate deposition in this spot has not yet been spoken of, 
but is evident when on the ground, and from a glance at the 
map. A transverse valley passes just below this point from 
Muir inlet to the western inlet into which Glacier Bay divides. 
This transverse valley is at present, occupied by a decaying 
glacier opening into both inlets, and sending a sub-glacial 
stream, through a long, narrow series of moraines, into Muir 
inlet about two miles to the south. Now, when a general ad- 
vance of the ice was in progress, this transverse stream probably 
pushed itself down into the inlet across the path of the ice moy- 
ing from the north, and so formed an obstruction to the water 
running from the southwest corner of the main glacier, thus 
favoring the rapid deposition which so evidently took place. 
When this enclosed place was filled up, and the advancing ice 
had risen above and surmounted the projecting shoulder of the 
mountain just to the north, that rocky barrier protected a por- 
tion of the forest from the force of the ice movement, causing 
the ice to move some distance over the top of the superincum- 
bent gravel before exerting its full downward force. Thus 
sealed up on the lee side of this protecting ridge of rock, there 
would seem to be no limit to the length of time the forest might 
be preserved. JI see no reason why this forest may not have 
antedated the Glacial period itself. 
The existence of other forests similarly preserved in that 
vicinity is amply witnessed to by many facts. One upon the 
island near the west shore, four miles south, is now exposed in 
a similarly protected position. Furthermore, the moraine, 
already described on the east side of the inlet, contains much 
wood ground up into slivers and fragments. Indeed, our whole 
dependence during the ménth for fuel was upon such fragments 
