RUSSELL FIORD 
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midway between Point Latouche and Knight Island may 
correspond to a comparatively recent maximum of the 
Disenchantment Bay Glacier — that from which it was 
retreating when observed by La Perouse. A more intel¬ 
ligent judgment can be formed when the system of sound¬ 
ings shall have been carried through Disenchantment Bay. 
Turning attention to Russell Fiord, we find pertinent 
phenomena somewhat more abundant, and it seems pos¬ 
sible that their careful study may yield important chapters 
of the local history. The lower parts of the fiord walls 
are finely sculptured, showing by magnificent fiutings that 
there has been much longitudinal scouring. At various 
points, but especially south of Hidden Glacier, there are 
marginal banks of gravel similar to those about Muir 
Glacier, characterized by horizontal bedding but showing 
by their surficial forms that they have been overridden 
and molded by a glacier. Nearly all parts of the walls of 
Russell Fiord carry vegetation, of which the alder is a 
conspicuous element, but the growth is relatively sparse 
toward the north and dense and luxuriant toward the 
south. The gravels about the basin at the extreme south¬ 
ern end bear a luxuriant and mature forest of spruce. 
Looking back to the time when Russell Fiord was filled 
by a glacier, it seems evident that the ice stood for a con¬ 
siderable period with a front just outside the mountains. 
The expansion of the fiord in the edge of the foreland 
corresponds, I conceive, to the flaring end of David¬ 
son Glacier, and the surrounding plain of gravel is the 
equivalent of the moraine barrier which the Davidson has 
built in Lynn Canal. This condition is assumed to date 
back several centuries, for it is not probable that the 
forest could occupy the whole surface of the gravels until 
the ice had retreated. The banks of gravel within the 
fiord record fingerings of the ice front and subsequent re¬ 
advances, but whether these oscillations preceded or fol- 
