LAMPLUGH: GLACIATION IN VANCOUVER ISLAND. 67 
trail turned inland ; and at Alberni I saw a true till in the river 
banks, but did not come across any well-glaciated surfaces. 
Alaska. — In a voyage northward to Sitka, Alaska, wherever the 
steamer allowed us to land I saw well-marked evidences of glaciation, 
either in the form of scattered blocks, glaciated surfaces, or morainic 
material. The best examples of the last were seen at Metlakahtlah 
and Fort Wrangel. The glaciated surfaces do not seem to have 
retained their markings nearly so well as in the region further south 
as one might expect from the severer winters and greater rainfall ; 
but at Sitka, on tearing away a thin covering of sods from the 
hillock of basalt on which the old block house stands, I laid bare a 
beautifully scratched surface, though the exposed rock on the slopes 
of the mound only showed the broader features of glaciation. 
Part III. — The Muir Glacier op Alaska. 
This glacier is a glorious mass of clear blue ice which comes 
down to the sea in a narrow fiord in lat. 59° N., opening into the 
Chicoot Inlet. It ends in an unbroken precipice crowned with 
pinnacles which stretches completely across the fiord, being three 
miles long, and from 250 to 350 feet in height. Huge masses are 
detached from this cliff at short intervals and go crashing down into 
the sea, filling the fiord with floating ice, and causing a heavy ground 
swell which runs in breakers on the beach. These breakers have 
cut the cliff-section which I shall presently describe. 
At the time of my visit, Aug. 9th, 1884, when the waters of 
the bay were quiet, strong springs of milky water could be seen 
rising up through the sea near the foot of the ice. Similar springs 
gushed out in many places on the gravelly slopes of the eastern 
moraine, between the glacier and the mountains, sometimes coming 
up through an unknown thickness of clear ice, depositing in some 
cases masses of pasty clay in hollow places amongst the gravels, 
which formed dangerous sloughs. This water-system is quite 
distinct from the surface-drainage of the glacier with which it some- 
times mingles : the upper waters even when crossing surface-moraine 
are always brilliantly pure and bright. 
On the sandy beach of the eastern shore, within a few 
hundred feet of the ice cliff, I saw a small patch of blueish-grey 
