132 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
itself stands on a foreland carved from the rock, and this 
foreland slopes gradually under the water of the sound or 
bay. In detail the foreland is even more rugged than that 
of Annette Island, and where it passes beneath the water 
its eminences give rise to a great number of islets, which 
stud the sound and form the natural breakwater of Sitka 
Harbor. The relations of mountain, foreland and islands 
are well shown in plate xvii (lower view) and figure 
65, which represent Cape Baranof, a few miles south of 
Sitka. Here 
also the in¬ 
dicated base- 
level has ap¬ 
proximately 
the height 
of modern 
sea-level. 
About 
Wrangell 
and Wran¬ 
gell Strait, a region on the landward side of the archi¬ 
pelago, we saw more extensive tracts which probably 
pertain to the same base-level. They stand somewhat 
higher, averaging several hundred feet in altitude; and 
the parts we saw best have been so modified by glacial 
erosion that original base-leveling might not have been 
inferred without the aid of the Annette and Sitka exam¬ 
ples. They are illustrated by the upper view in plate 
XVII. 
Near the south end of Lynn Canal, Douglas Island is 
separated from the mainland by a narrow fiord, the Gas- 
tineau Channel. Facing the channel, the island is flanked 
by the ruins of a high rock terrace (fig. 66). A dozen 
short valleys of the island join the fiord at the level of the 
terrace, which descends southeastward from an estimated 
FIG. 65. OLD PENEPLAIN NEAR SITKA. 
Seen from the timber line on Mount Verstovia. 
