170 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
Whether these old ramparts represent the limit of 
Pleistocene ice at the time of maximum glaciation is a 
question as to which there may be doubt, but I incline to 
the view that the affirmative answer is the true one. So 
far as I could judge from distant views, the rounding of 
rock ridges and crests, characteristic of flooding by ice, 
extends but a moderate distance above the surfaces of 
modern glaciers on this part of the coast, and indicates 
glaciers of about the same magnitude as are indicated by 
the rampart moraines. 
On the northwest side of Dry Bay, which receives 
Alsek River, a single fragment of a high rampart was 
seen, and in association with it a terrace; but thence to 
Yakutat Bay the broad foreland is low, its flatness being 
relieved only by ridges of moderate height. About Yak¬ 
utat Village and Ocean Cape, at the mouth of Yakutat 
Bay, some of these ridges were seen to be morainic, 
and it is supposed that the whole foreland is constituted 
of glacial waste, chiefly of waterlaid gravel. If high ram¬ 
parts were formed along this portion of the coast they 
were afterward destroyed and the material carried sea¬ 
ward by later advances of the ice. 
On the mountains near the head of Yakutat Bay are 
fragmentary terraces at various heights ranging up to 
1,200 or 1,500 feet, but as they face the bay rather than 
the ocean, it is entirely possible that they are of glacial 
rather than marine origin. Hanging valleys occur on the 
eastern wall of Yakutat Bay and on the walls of Russell 
and Nunatak fiords. One of these, near Nunatak Fiord, 
is now occupied by a glacier which cascades for 1,000 
feet down the steep wall of the fiord. The sills of these 
valleys range from tide-level to a height of 1,500 feet or 
more, and they tell of great erosion by the trunk glaciers. 
The associated rounding of topographic angles is carried 
higher above surfaces of modern glaciers than in the 
