Surface Geology of the Yukon Territory. — Nordenskjold. 289 
150 feet above the river just above lake Lebarge. The only 
point of disagreement has been as to whether these deposits 
and shore lines were formed by arms of the sea or by inland 
lakes. 
It is further evident from the accounts spoken of that the 
whole country in the neighborhood of the coast chain was once 
covered with ice, inasmuch as glacial furrows have been ob- 
served as far north as the mouth of the Hotalingua river. 
North of that a light-coloured clayey earth is exposed in the 
bed of the Yukon valley, unstratified or only obscurely strati- 
fied, containing pebbles and boulders, some of them striated, 
and described as a true till or glacial boulder-clay, although 
l)oth Dawson and Russell maintain that it might have been 
formed without direct communication with land-ice. This de- 
posit is found up to the vicinity of the Five Finger rapids, but 
beyond that point traces of ice-action cease, and it seems to 
be a fully accepted fact that the whole of the northern section 
of the Yukon Territory and Alaska was never covered with 
ice. Spurr alone brings out certain peculiar features in the to- 
pography of the valleys, which he connects with the local gla- 
ciers still to be found in their upper parts in the early summer. 
In what follows an attempt is made to divide up the coun- 
try into sections as it presents itself to a traveler from the sea- 
coast through the Yukon valley to the mouth of the Klondike 
river. 
I. The Region of the Fjords an i the JVestern Paeijie Moun- 
tain Slopes. 
Observations that I made here I intend to publish else- 
where along with those of similar nature from other parts. As 
is well known the most characteristic feature in the topography 
of the coast of British Columbia is a system of channels run- 
ning parrallel to the limit of the continent, just as is the case 
in western Patagonia. But there are also genuine fjord^s that 
run transverse to the general direction and which as a rule 
continue their course, here just as in Patagonia, right through 
the outer island-chain. The Lynn canal forms a sort of inter- 
mediary between these two. Dyea inlet, the innermost arm of 
the canal, is 11 miles long and one wide; it forms, as it were, 
a separate fjord, the bed of which lies 170 fathoms below the 
bar at its mouth. On the other hand lakes are onlv rarelv found 
