4 G. FE. Wright—The Muir Glacier. 
tain on the west side of Muir inlet, between it and the other 
fork of the bay, is 2,900 feet high. That on the east is 3,150 
feet high, rising to about 5,000 feet two or three miles back. 
The base of these mountains consists of metamorphic slate 
whose strata are very much contorted,—so much so that I found 
it impossible, in the time at command, to ascertain their system 
of folds. Upon the summits of the mountains on both sides 
are remnants of blue crystalline limestone preserved in syncli- 
nal axes. In the terminal moraine deposited in front of the 
glacier on its eastern side are numerous bowlders of very pure 
white marble coming in medial moraines originating in moun- 
tain valleys several miles to the east. Granitic bowlders. are 
also abundant. 
2. Dimensions and characteristics of the Muir Glacier. 
The width of the ice where the glacier breaks through be- 
tween the mountains is 10,664 feet—a little over two miles. 
But, as before remarked, the water-front is only about one mile. 
This front does not form a straight line, but terminates in an 
angle projecting about a quarter of a mile below the northeast 
and northwest corners of the inlet. The depth of the water 
300 yards south of the ice-front is (according to the measure- 
ment of Capt. Hunter of the steamer /daho) 516 feet near the 
middle of the channel; but it shoals rapidly toward the eastern 
shore. According to my measurements, taken by leveling 
up on the shore, the height of the ice at the extremity of the 
projecting angle in the middle of the inlet was 250 feet; and 
the front was perpendicular. Back a few hundred feet from the 
projecting point, and along the front nearer the shores, the per- 
pendicular face of the ice was a little over 300 feet. A little 
farther back, on a line even with the shoulders of the moun- 
tains between which the glacier emerges to meet the water, the 
general height is 408 feet. T'rom here the surface of the gla- 
cier rises toward the east and northeast about 100 feet to the 
mile. On going out in that direction on the ice seven miles (as 
near as I could estimate) I found myself, by the barometer, 
1,050 feet above the bay. 
The main body of the glacier occupies a vast amphitheatre 
with diameters ranging from thirty to forty miles. This esti- 
mate was made from various views obtained from the mountain 
summits near its mouth when points whose distances were 
known in other directions were in view. Nine main streams 
of ice unite to form the grand trunk of the glacier. These 
branches come from every direction north of the east-and-west 
line across the mouth of the glacier; and no less than seventeen 
sub-branches can be seen coming in to join the main streams 
