HIGH MOUNTAIN DISTRICT 
169 
countered the sea soon after reaching the basal plain, 
they may have been wasted so rapidly along the line of 
contact as to determine there a principal line of morainic 
accumulation, and the ramparts of the coast may constitute 
the record of a successful resistance by the sea to glacial 
invasion. 
If this explanation is correct, the Pleistocene submer¬ 
gence of the coast probably extended considerably above 
the zone of terraces. The oceanic resistance determining 
the deposition of drift would not be effective after the 
moraine ridge had been built so high as to become a 
partition between ice and water, and the theoretic posi¬ 
tion of the old sea plane is therefore along or above the 
highest crests of the moraine. 
The hypothetic conditions are similar to those at the 
foot of Davidson Glacier. If that glacier should shrink, 
and the sea-level should be lowered in Lynn Canal, the 
Davidson moraine, if composed wholly of rock debris, 
would survive as a crescentic rampart with a flat top; 
and if the ramparts of the Fairweather region are strictly 
homologous they should have broad and level crests. If, 
however, the Davidson moraine is not wholly built of 
rock debris, but consists rather of an apron of debris 
resting against a concealed ice slope, the resulting ram¬ 
part, when ice and water are withdrawn, would have an 
acute crest, with uneven sky-line ; but the crest, instead of 
representing the plane of the present water-level, would 
stand somewhat below it. In viewing the old moraines 
of the Fairweather coast I recognized a few local flat 
summits, but the general character of the crest line is 
acute and its height is not uniform. If, therefore, the re¬ 
lation of the old glaciers to the sea was like the present 
relation of the Davidson Glacier, the sea then stood much 
higher against the land than now — or else the land then 
stood lower. 
