REGION OF THE GULF COAST 1 83 
the other districts the Pleistocene glaciers were confluent, 
extended beyond the line of the present coast, and prob¬ 
ably reached the sea, although their limit is undetermined. 
In the high mountain region there has been post-glacial 
uplift of the mountains, and in connection with that uplift 
great moraines, which were probably formed at the water’s 
edge, have become part of the land. In the other districts 
the apparent absence of similar great moraines is pro¬ 
visionally explained by the hypothesis that the sea surface 
then lay lower with reference to the land and that the 
subsequent submergence of a portion of the land has con¬ 
cealed the zone of morainic deposit. 
Assuming that a change has transpired in the relation 
of land and sea since the epoch of maximum glaciation, it 
is of interest to inquire whether that change was a sinking 
of the land or a rising of the sea. The general theory of 
the subject has not yet reached such a condition as to 
afford a satisfactory answer, but, on the contrary, is so 
unsettled as to find advantage in every local determina¬ 
tion of the nature of the change which may be made on 
independent grounds. In the case of the high mountain 
district, the geologic recency of orogenic movement is 
indicated in other ways, and the post-Pleistocene emerg¬ 
ence of land is therefore referred with confidence to land 
change rather than water change. In the other districts 
we have no evidence of recent orogenic change, and the 
mountains appear to have been produced by the dissec¬ 
tion of broad plateaus. The uplands about the Alexander 
Archipelago and Prince William Sound, and those of 
Kenai Peninsula and Kadiak Island, all contain traces of 
uplifted peneplains, the uplift having occurred so long ago 
that the resulting plateaus were profoundly sculptured 
before the advent of Pleistocene glaciers. The districts 
of the Alexander Archipelago and Kadiak Island are also 
characterized by peneplains near present sea-level; and 
