has been extended by the action of the waves and tides until a beach a hundred feet in length has been deposited. The dashing of the bowlders and sand against the cliffs at the head of the cove by the incoming waves has increased its extension in that direction so as to form a well-sheltered refuge. The absence of beaches on other portions of the island is due to the fact that its bordering precipices descend abruptly into deep water, and do not admit of the accumulation of débris about their bases. Without stones and sand with which the waves can work, the excavation of terraces is an exceedingly slow operation. The precipitous nature of the borders of the island is due, to some extent at least, to the abrasion of the rocks by the glacial ice which once encircled it.

Pulling our canoe far up on the beach, we began the ascent of the cliffs. Hundreds of sea birds, startled from their nests by our intrusion, circled fearlessly about our heads and filled the air with their wild cries. The more exposed portions of the slopes were bare of vegetation, but in the shelter of every depression dense thickets obstructed the way. Many of the little basins between the rounded knolls hold tarns of fresh water, and were occupied at the time of our visit by flocks of gray geese. It is evident that the island was intensely glaciated at no distant day. The surfaces of its rounded domes are so smoothly polished that they glitter like mirrors in the sunlight. On the polished surfaces there are deep grooves and fine, hair-like lines, made by the stones set in the bottom of the glacier which once flowed over the island and removed all of the rocks that were not firm and hard. On many of the domes of sandstone there rest bowlders of a different character, which have evidently been brought from the mountains toward the northeast.

The summit of the island is about 800 feet above the level of the sea, and, like its sides, is polished and striated. The terraces on the mountains of the mainland show that the glacier which formerly flowed out from Disenchantment bay must have been fully 2.000 feet deep. The bed it occupied toward the south is now flooded by the waters of Yakutat bay.

At the time of Malaspina's visit, 100 years ago, the glaciers from the north reached Haenke island, and surrounded it on three sides.* At the rate of retreat indicated by comparing

*The map accompanying Malaspina's report and indicating these conditions has already been mentioned, and is reproduced on plate 7, page 68.

Malaspina's records with the present condition, the glaciers must have reached Point Esperanza, at the mouth of Disenchantment bay, about 200 years ago; and an allowance of between 500 and 1,000 years would seem ample for the retreat of the glaciers since they were at their flood.

Reaching the topmost dome of Haenke island, a wonderful panorama of snow-covered mountains, glaciers, and icebergs lay before us. The island occupies the position of the stage in a vast amphitheatre; the spectators are hoary mountain peaks, each a monarch robed in ermine and bidding defiance to the ceaseless war of the elements. How insignificant the wanderer who confronts such an audience, and how weak his efforts to describe such a scene!

From a wild cliff-enclosed valley toward the north, guarded by towering pinnacles and massive cliffs, flows a great glacier, the fountains of which are far back in the heart of the mountains beyond the reach of vision. Having vainly sought an Indian name for this ice-stream, I concluded to christen it the Dalton glacier, in honor of John Dalton, a miner and frontiersman now living at Yakutat, who is justly considered the pioneer explorer of the region. The glacier is greatly shattered and pinnacled in descending its steep channel, and on reaching the sea it expands into a broad ice-foot. The last steep descent is made just before gaining the water, and is marked by crevasses and pinnacles of magnificent proportion and beautiful color. This is one of the few glaciers in the St. Elias region that has well-defined medial and lateral moraines. At the bases of the cliffs on the western side there is a broad, lateral moraine, and in the center, looking like a winding road leading up the glacier, runs a triple-banded ribbon of débris, forming a typical medial moraine. The morainal material carried by the glacier is at last deposited at its foot, or floated away by icebergs, and scattered far and wide over the bottom of Yakutat bay.

The glacier expands on entering the water, as is the habit of all glaciers when unconfined, and ends in magnificent ice-cliffs some two miles in length. The water dashing against the bases of the cliffs dissolves them away, and the tides tend to raise and lower the expanded ice-foot. The result is that huge masses, sometimes reaching from summit to base of the cliffs, are undermined, and topple over into the sea with a tremendous crash. Owing to the distance of the glacier from Haenke island, we could

The Formation of Icebergs.

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see the fall long before the roar reached our ears; the cliffs separated, and huge masses seemed to sink without a sound; the spray thrown up as the blue pinnacles disappeared ascended like gleaming rockets, sometimes as high as the tops of the cliffs, and then fell back in silent cataracts of foam. Then a noise as of a cannonade came rolling across the waters and echoing from cliff to cliff. The roar of the glacier continues all day when the air is warm and the sun bright, and is most active when the summer days are finest. Sometimes, roar succeeded roar, like artillery fire, and the salutes were answered, gun for gun, by the great Hubbard glacier, which pours its flood of ice into the fjord a few miles further northeastward. This ice-stream, most magnificent of the tide-water glaciers of Alaska yet discovered, and a towering mountain peak from which the glacier receives a large part of its drainage, were named in honor of Gardiner G. Hubbard, president of the National Geographic Society.

Looking across the waters of the bay, whitened by thousands of floating bergs, we could see three miles of the ice-cliffs formed where the Hubbard glacier enters the sea. A dark headland on the shore of the mainland to the right shut off the full view of the glacier but formed a strongly drawn foreground, which enhanced the picturesque effect of the scenery. The Hubbard glacier flows majestically through a deep valley leading back into the mountains, and has two main branches, with a smaller and steeper tributary between. These branches unite to form a single ice-foot extending into the bay. The western branch has a dark medial moraine down its center, which makes a bold, sweeping curve before joining the main stream. There is also a broad lateral débris-belt along the bases of the cliffs forming its right bank. The whole surface of the united glacier, and all of the white tongues running back into the mountains beyond the reach of vision, are broken and shattered, owing to the steepness and roughness of the bed over which they flow. The surface, where not concealed by morainal material, is snow-white; but in the multitude of crevasses the blue ice is exposed, and gives a greenish-blue tint to the entire stream. Where the subglacial slopes are steep, the ice is broken into pinnacles and towers of the grandest description.

On the steep mountain sides sloping toward the Hubbard glacier there are more than a dozen secondary ice-streams which are tributary to it. The amphitheatres in which the glacier has

its beginnings have never been seen; but our general knowledge of the fountains from which glaciers flow assures us that not only scores but hundreds of other secondary and tertiary glaciers far back into the mountains contribute their floods to the same great stream.

After being received on board the Corwin, late in September, we had an opportunity to view the great sea-cliffs of the Hubbard glacier near at hand. Captain Hooper, attracted by the magnificent scenery, took his vessel up Disenchantment bay to a point beyond Haenke island, whence a view could be had of the eastern extension of the inlet. So far as is known, the Corwin was the first vessel to navigate those waters. Soundings made between the island and the ice-foot gave forty to sixty fathoms. At the elbow, where the southeastern shore of the bay turns abruptly eastward, there is a low islet not represented on any map previous to the one made by the recent expedition, which commands even a wider prospect than can be obtained from Haenke island. Future visitors to this remote coast should endeavor to reach this islet, after having beheld the grand panorama obtainable from the summit of Haenke island. The portion of Disenchantment bay stretching eastward from the foot of Hubbard glacier is enclosed on all sides by bold mountains, the lower slopes of which have the subdued and flowing outlines characteristic of glaciated regions. Several glaciers occur in the high-grade lateral valleys opening from the bay; but these have recently retreated, and none of them have sufficient volume at present to reach the water. The general recession, in which all the glaciers of Alaska are participating, is manifested here by the broad débris fields, which cover all the lower ice-streams not ending in the sea. The absence of vegetation on the smooth rocks recently abandoned by the ice also tells of recent climatic changes.

A débris-covered glacier, so completely concealed by continuous sheets of stones and earth that its true character can scarcely be recognized, descends from the mountains just east of Hubbard glacier. It is formed by the union of two principal tributaries, and, on reaching comparatively level ground, expands into a broad ice-foot, but does not have sufficient volume to reach the Another glacier, of smaller size but of the same general character, lies between the Hubbard and Dalton glaciers.

sea.

In a rugged defile in the mountains just west of Haenke island there is another small dirt-covered glacier, which creeps down from the precipices above and reaches within a mile of the water.