The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-06-16
THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA.
A LONG COAST ZINE FURROJVED BY
THEM.
Some Greater Than Those of swltzer-
Iand--Not What They Were Once.
tChounh

The entire coast Of Alaska and its is
lands from Dixon entrance to the Aleu-
tian Islands, is mountainous. The land
everywhere rises abruptly from the sea
to SUBMITS ranging from three thou
sand to eighteen thousand feet high.
The mountain slopes are very steep, the
higher SUBMITS are extremely rugged,
ana thousands of them are totally mac
cessible. Level land near the coast is
almost unknown, except at the heads OF
the fiords which continue inland as val
leys or canyons with precipitous walls.
The most prominent fact connected
with the coast region of southern Alas
ka, indeed of the northwest coast of
North America, from Puget Sound to
the end of the Alaskan peninsula, Is
that its features are almost wholly the
product Of glacial action. Not only are
Its fiords the abandoned channels of
glaciers but its hills and mountains
were shaped by them, and 50 recent is
the retreat of the glaciers that but little,
If any, Of the work of the atmosphere
and of streams is thus far to be seen
superimposed upon the glacial work.
There is probably nowhere on earth an
equal area in which the relief features
are SO purely the product of glacial ero-
sion and in which aqueous erosion has
done SO little The remains of the enor-
nous glacial system which at one time
covered practically this whole area are
now existent in the form of hundreds of
glaciers. While these are pygmes in
comparison with their progenitors
scores of them exceed In magnitude the
ILL. 1aJ
as whole, the region is one affording
unequalled facilities for studying the
work of glaciers, both in action and by
their accomplished results.
The fiords present everywhere the
characteristic cross section of a glacier
cut gorge, with steep, almost precipi-
tous walls, becoming gradually less
steep toward the bottom, which is near
Is level, giving the common U-shaped
section. The floors of the gorges of
branches are commonly at a higher lev
81 than the main ford, so that they open
upon 1t at attitudes of hundreds or even
thousands of feet above it. This phe-
nomenon, so nearly universal and SO
striking, has only recently been noted.
AT the time these branch gorges were
formed the surface of the ice in them
and in the main gorge was necessarily
at the same level, and the difference in
elevation of the floors of the gorges
measured the difference in the thickness
of the ice of the main and branch
gQrges. For if the surface of the ice in
the branch were for any considerable
time at higher level than that of the
main gorge, the former would cut it's
gorge down, so as to bring the surfaces
on level 1t is furthermore manifest
that the surface of the ice in the side
gorge could not exist at a lower level
than that of the main gorge. as in that
case the latter would overflow into it.
Hence the gorges of the main and
branch glaciers represent status which
persisted for long time, and the recess
sion of the glacier must have been ac-
complished rather rapidly as otherwise
the branch would have had time to cut !
deeply into the wall of the main gorge.
Gu the Alaska coast are seen fine ex-
amples Of these gorges in all stages,
from those wherein the main and trib-
utary gorges are both filled with moving
ice, and the gorges are in process of
formation, to those in which all the
gorges, main and branch, have been
abandoned by Iceland of these perhaps
the most striking are those where the I
ice in the main gorge has retreated be-
yond the mouth of the tributary. which
now descends in cascades of ice over the |
lip of the main gorge Fine examples |
of this were seen in Russell Fiord, and |
in Port Wells, Prince William Sound, |
are several small glaciers formerly trib
utary to that in the head of the inlet.
A.
walls of the ford into the water, from
which the main glacier has retreated.
The straightness of the fiords, the de-
Elections in their courses produced by
the junction with large branches also
stamp them Enthusiastically as glacier
cut.
There are no glaciers of magnitude in
the islands of southeastern Alaska, al
though their relief forms We're through
out carved by glaciers. The large liv-
ing glaciers are confined to the main
land.
Glaciers exist in the mountains Dor
dering the coast from Dixon entrance
westward nearly to the end of the Alas
ka peninsula but east of Glacier bay
none of them descend to the sea, al
though many are of great magnitude,
among them the Patterson on Frederic
Sound and the Davidson in Lynn Canal,
both of which nearly reach the sea and
doubtless not long ago were discharging
ioebergs into It. The existing glaciers
Of the Alaskan coast may be grouped in
two classes, those whose fronts reach
the sea and discharge iceberge, and
those which do not. The first may be
called living, the latter dead. OF the
former, the expedition saw and exam {
med no fewer than twenty-five, includ-
ng six in Glacier bay, the Muir, Grand
Pacific, John Hopkins, Reid, Charpen-
tier and Hugh Miller; the Crillon, from !
the Fairweather range; three in Yuka-
lat bay and Russell Fiord, the Hub t
bard, Dalton and Nunatak; and twelve | {
n Prince William Sound, including the
Columbia, in Columbia bay. the Har- ]
yard, Yale, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Vassar {
and Wellesley in Port Wells and the l
Hartman Surprise, Serpentine Cata- |
act and Washington III Hartman FL {
,rd.
OF the latter class, there are many s
hundreds, ranging in size from the |
treat Malaspina, a lake of ice sixty r
niles by thirty, and fed by scores of ice 2
streams from the st. Elias Alps, down I