An Expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska

The southern coast of Alaska is remarkable for the regularity of its general outline. If a circle a thousand miles in diameter be inscribed on a map of the northern Pacific with a point in about latitude 54° and longitude 145° as a center, a large part of its northern periphery will be found to coincide with the southern shore of Alaska between Dixon entrance on the east and the Alaska peninsula on the west. On the northern part of this great coast-circle lies the region explored in the summer of 1890 and described in the following pages.

From Cross sound, at the northern end of the great system of islands forming southeastern Alaska, westward along the base of the Fairweather range, the mountains are exceedingly rugged, and present some of the finest coast scenery in the world. There are but two inlets east of Yakutat bay on this shore which afford shelter even for small boats. These are Lituya bay and Dry bay. Ships may enter Lituya bay, at certain stages of the tide, and find a safe harbor within; but the approaches to Dry bay are not navigable. West of Yakutat bay the coast is equally inhospitable all the way to Prince William sound.

As if to compensate for the lack of refuge on either end, there is in the center of this great stretch of rock-bound coast, over 300 miles in extent, a magnificent inlet known as Yakutat bay, in which a thousand ships could find safe anchorage. On some old maps this bay is designated as "Baie de Monti," "Admiralty bay" and "Bering bay," as will be seen when its discovery and history are discussed on another page.

The southern shore of Alaska, for a distance of 200 miles along the bases of the Fairweather and St. Elias ranges, is formed of a low table-land intervening between the mountains and the sea. Yakutat bay is the only bight in this plateau sufficiently deep to reach the mountain to the northward. This bay has a broad opening to the sea; the distance between its ocean capes is twenty miles, and its extension inland is about the same. Its eastern shore is fringed with low, wooded islands, among which are sheltered harbors, safe from every wind that blows. The most accessible of these is Port Mulgrave, near its entrance on the eastern side.

The shores of Yakutat bay, on both the east and the west, are low and densely wooded for a distance of twenty-five miles from the ocean, where the foot-hills of the mountains begin. At the head of the bay the land rises in steep bluffs and forms picturesque mountains, snow-capped the year round. These highlands, although truly mountainous in their proportions, are but the foot-hills of still nobler uplifts immediately northward. The bay extends through an opening in the first range to the base of the white peaks beyond. This opening was examined a century ago by explorers in search of the delusive "Northwest passage," in the hope that it would lead to the long-sought "Strait of Annan"—the dream of many voyagers. It was surveyed by the expedition in command of Malaspina in 1792, and on account of his frustrated hopes was named "Puerto del Desengaño," or "Disenchantment bay," as it has been rendered by English writers.

The waters of Yakutat and Disenchantment bays are deep, and broken only by islands and reefs along their eastern shores. A few soundings made in Disenchantment bay within half a mile of the land showed a depth of from 40 to 120 fathoms. The swell of the ocean is felt up to the very head of the inlet, indicating, as was remarked to me by Captain C. L. Hooper, that there are no bars or reefs to break the force of the incoming swells.

The lowlands bordering Yakutat bay on the southeast are composed of assorted glacial débris. Much of the country is low and swampy, and is reported to contain numerous lakelets. Northwest of the bay the plateau is higher than toward the southeast, and has a general elevation of about 500 feet at a distance of a mile from the shore; but the height increases toward the interior, where a general elevation of 1,500 feet is attained over large areas. All of this plateau, excepting a narrow fringe along the shore, is formed by a great glacier, belonging to what is termed in this paper the Piedmont type. There are many reasons for believing that the plateau southeast of Yakutat bay was at one time covered by a glacier similar to the one now existing on the northwest.¹

¹ This matter will be discussed in [part IV] of this paper, where it is also shown that Yakutat bay itself was formerly occupied by glacial ice.

The mountains on the northern border of the seaward-stretching table-lands, both southeast and northwest of Yakutat bay, are abrupt and present steep southward-facing bluffs. This escarpment is formed of stratified sandstones and shales, and owes its origin to the upheaval of the rocks along a line of fracture. In other words, it is a gigantic fault scarp. The gravel and bowlders forming the plateau extending oceanward have been accumulating on a depressed orographic block (or mass of strata moved as a unit by mountain-making forces), which has undergone some movement in very recent times, as is recorded by a terrace on the fault scarp bordering it. West of Yakutat the geological structure is more complex, and long mountain spurs project into the platform of ice skirting the ocean. Filling the valleys between the mountain spurs, there are many large seaward-flowing glaciers, tributary to the great Piedmont ice-sheet.

This brief sketch of the geography of Yakutat bay, together with the accompanying outline map of Alaska (plate 2), will, it is hoped, aid in making intelligible the following historical sketch and the narrative of the present expedition.

PART I.

PREVIOUS EXPLORATIONS IN THE ST. ELIAS REGION.²

² For more complete bibliographic references than space will allow in this paper, the reader is referred to Dall and Baker's "Partial list of books, pamphlets, papers in serials, journals and other publications on Alaska and adjacent regions;" in Pacific Coast Pilot: Coasts and Inlets of Alaska; second series. U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, 1879; 4°, pp. 225–375.

BERING, 1741.

The first discovery of the southern coast of Alaska was made by Vitus Bering and Alexei Cherikof, in the vessels St. Peter and St. Paul, in 1741. On July 20 of that year, Bering saw the mountains of the mainland, but anchored his vessels at Kyak island, 180 miles west of Yakutat bay, without touching the continental shore. A towering, snow-clad summit northeast of Kyak island was named "Mount St. Elias," after the patron saint of the day.

COOK, 1778.

The next explorer to visit this portion of Alaska was Captain James Cook, who sailed past the entrance of Yakutat bay on May 4, 1778. Thinking that this was the bay in which Bering anchored, he named it "Bering's bay." Mount St. Elias was seen in the northwest at a distance of 40 leagues, but no attempt was made to measure its height.

LA PÉROUSE, 1786.³

³ Voyage de la Pérouse autour du monde. Four vols., 4°, and atlas; Paris, 1797; vol. 2, pp. 130–150.

Yakutat bay, in which we are specially interested, was next seen by the celebrated French navigator, J. F. G. de la Pérouse, in command of the frigates La Boussole and L'Astrolabe, on June 23, 1786.

The chart showing the route followed by La Pérouse during this portion of his voyage is reproduced in plate 3. In the splendid atlas accompanying the narrative of his travels, the explorer pictures the quaint, high-pooped vessels in which he circumnavigated the globe. These French frigates were the first to cruise off Yakutat bay. The last vessel to navigate those waters was the United States revenue steamer Corwin, which took our little exploring party on board in September, 1890, and then steamed northward to the ice-cliffs at the head of Disenchantment bay. So far as I am aware, the Corwin is the only vessel that has floated on the waters of that inlet north of Haenke island. One hundred years has made a revolution in naval architecture, but has left this portion of the Alaska coast still unexplored.

La Pérouse sailed northward from the Sandwich islands, and first saw land, which proved to be a portion of the St. Elias range, on June 23. At first the shore was obscured by fog, which, as stated in the narrative of the voyage, "suddenly disappearing, all at once disclosed to us a long chain of mountains covered with snow, which, if the weather had been clear, we would have been able to have seen thirty leagues farther off. We discovered Bering's Mount Saint Elias, the summit of which appeared above the clouds."

The first view of the land is described as not awakening the feelings of joy which usually accompany the first view of an unknown shore after a long voyage. To quote the navigator's own words:

"Those immense heaps of snow, which covered a barren land without trees, were far from agreeable to our view. The mountains appeared a little remote from the sea, which broke against a bold and level land, elevated about a hundred and fifty or two hundred fathoms. This black rock, which appeared as if calcined by fire, destitute of all verdure, formed a striking contrast to the whiteness of the snow, which was perceptible through the clouds; it served as the base to a long ridge of mountains, which appeared to stretch fifteen leagues from east to west. At first we thought ourselves very near it, the summit of the mountains appeared to be just over our heads, and the snow cast forth a brightness calculated to deceive eyes not accustomed to it; but in proportion as we advanced we perceived in front of the high ground hillocks covered with trees, which we took for islands."

After some delay, on account of foggy weather, an officer was despatched to the newly discovered land; but on returning he reported that there was no suitable anchorage to be found. It is difficult at this time to understand the reason for this adverse report, unless a landing was attempted on the western side of Yakutat bay, where there are no harbors.

The name "Baie de Monti" was given to the inlet in honor of De Monti, the officer who first landed. The location of this bay, as described in the narrative and indicated on the map accompanying the report of the voyage, shows that it corresponds with the Yakutat bay of modern maps.

Observations made at this time by M. Dagelet, the astronomer of the expedition, determined the elevation of Mount St. Elias to be 1,980 toises. Considering the toise as equivalent to 6.39459 English feet, this measurement places the elevation of the mountain at 12,660 feet. What method was used in making this measurement is not recorded, and we have therefore no means of deciding the degree of confidence to be placed in it.

After failing to find an anchorage at Yakutat bay. La Pérouse sailed eastward, and on June 29 discovered another bay, which he supposed to be the inlet named "Bering's bay" by Captain Cook. It will be remembered that Cook's "Bering's bay" is Yakutat bay as now known. It is evident that the French navigator made an error in his identification, as the inlet designated as Bering's bay on his chart corresponds with that now known as Dry bay. On the maps referred to, a stream is represented as emptying into the head of this bay and rising a long distance northward; this is evidently Alsek river, the existence of which was for a long time doubted, but has recently been established beyond all question.

Finding it impossible to enter Dry bay, La Pérouse continued eastward and discovered Lituya bay, as now known, but which he named "Port des Francais." Here his ships anchored, after experiencing great difficulty in entering the harbor, and remained for many days, during which trade was carried on with the Indians, while surveys were made of the adjacent shores.

DIXON, 1787.⁴

⁴ The Voyage around the World; but more particularly to the Northwest Coast of America. Performed in 1788–1789, in the King George and Queen Charlotte; Captains Portlock and Dixon: 4°, London, 1789.

Although the actual discovery of Yakutat bay is to be credited to the French, the first exploration of its shores was made by an English captain. On May 23, 1787, Captain George Dixon anchored his vessel, the Queen Charlotte, within the shelter of its southeastern cape, and, in honor of Constance John Phipps, Lord Mulgrave, named the haven there discovered "Port Mulgrave." The harbor is described in the narrative of Dixon's voyage as being "entirely surrounded by low, flat islands, where scarcely any snow could be seen, and well sheltered from any winds whatever."

The voyage of the Queen Charlotte was not made for the purpose of increasing geographic knowledge, but with a commercial object. Trade was at once opened with the natives, but resulted less favorably than was desired, as only sixteen sea-otter skins and a few less valuable furs were secured.

On the chart accompanying the narrative of Dixon's voyage the inlet now known as Yakutat bay is named "Admiralty bay."

A survey of the adjacent shores and inlets was made, and the astronomical position of the anchorage was approximately determined. The map resulting from these surveys, the first ever made of any portion of Yakutat bay, is reproduced on a reduced scale as plate 4.

At the time of Dixon's voyage, the inhabitants numbered about seventy, including men, women, and children, and were thus described:

"They are of about middle size, their limbs straight and well shaped, but, like the rest of the inhabitants we have seen on the coast, are particularly fond of painting their faces with a variety of colors, so that it is not any easy matter to discover their real complexion."

An amusing instance is narrated of inducing a woman to wash her face, when it was discovered that—

"Her countenance had all the cheerful glow of an English milk maid, and the healthy red which flushed her cheeks was even beautifully contrasted with the whiteness of her neck; her eyes were black and sparkling; her eyebrows the same color, and most beautifully arched; her forehead so remarkably clear that the transparent veins were seen meandering even in their minutest branches—in short, she was what would be reckoned as handsome even in England. The symmetry of her features, however, was marred, at least in the eyes of her English admirer, by the habit of wearing a labret in the slit of her lower lip."

During our recent visit to Port Mulgrave we did not find the native women answering to the glowing description of the voyager who discovered the harbor; but this may be owing to the fact that we did not prevail upon any of them to wash their faces.

One other discrepancy must be noted between the records of Dixon's voyage and my own observations, made one hundred years later. The houses of the natives are described in the narrative just cited as—

"The most wretched hovels that can possibly be conceived: a few poles stuck in the ground, without order or regularity, recrossed and covered with loose boards, ... quite insufficient to keep out the snow and rain."

While this description would apply to the temporary shelters now used by the Yakutat Indians when on their summer hunting and fishing expeditions, it by no means describes the houses in which they pass the winter. These are large and substantially built of planks hewn from spruce trees, and in some instances supported from the inside by four huge posts, carved and painted to represent grotesque figures. In the center of the roof there is a large opening through which the smoke escapes from the fire kindled in an open space in the floor. But few of the Indian villages of Alaska, excepting perhaps the homes of the Thlinkets in the Alexandrian archipelago, are better built or more comfortable than those at Port Mulgrave.

On the map of Port Mulgrave already referred to, "Point Turner" and "Point Carrew" appear. The former was named for the second mate of the Queen Charlotte, who was the first of her officers to land; the second name was probably designed to honor another officer of the expedition, but of this I am not positive.

DOUGLAS, 1788.⁵

⁵ Voyage of the Iphigenia; Captain Douglas: in Voyages made in the years 1788–1789 from China to the Northwest Coast of America. John Meares, 4°, London, 1790.

In 1788, another trading vessel, the ship Iphigenia, in command of Captain Douglas, visited the southern shore of Alaska and anchored in Yakutat bay; but no special account of the country or the inhabitants is recorded in the narrative of the voyage.

MALASPINA, 1792.⁶

⁶ Relacion del viage hecho por las goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792 para reconocer el estrecho de Fuca; con una introduccion en que se da noticia de las expediciones executadas anteriormente por los Españoles en busca del paso del noroeste de la América [Por Don Dionisio Alcala Galiano]. Madrid, 1802 [accompanied by an atlas]. Pp. CXII–CXXI.

About a hundred years ago the interest felt by the maritime nations of Europe in a "Northwest passage," connecting the northern Atlantic with the northern Pacific, was revived by the renewal of the discussion as to the authenticity of Maldonado's reported discovery of the "Strait of Annan." The western entrance to this strait was supposed to be about in the position of Yakutat bay. Spain, in particular, after three hundred years of exploration and discovery in all parts of the world, was still anxious to extend her conquests, and, if possible, to discover the long-sought "Northwest passage." Two of her ships, the Descubierta and Atrevida, were then at Acapulco, in command of Don Alejandro Malaspina, who was engaged in a voyage of discovery.

Malaspina, like Columbus, was a native of Italy in the service of Spain. Orders were sent to him to cruise northward and test the truth of Maldonado's report. The narrative of this voyage is supposed to have been written by Don Dionisio Alcala Galiano, but his name does not appear on the title page. Still more curious is the fact that Malaspina's name is omitted from the narrative of his own voyage. On his return to Spain, he was thrown into prison, on account of court intrigues, and his discoveries were suppressed for many years.

Malaspina left Acapulco on the first of May, 1791, and reached the vicinity of the present site of Sitka on June 25. Two days later, Mount Fairweather, or "Monte Buen-tiempo," as it is designated on Spanish maps, was sighted. Continuing northwestward, the entrance to Yakutat bay was reached. The opening through the first range of mountains at its head seemed to correspond to Maldonado's description of the entrance to the mythical "Strait of Annan."

The eastern shore of Yakutat bay, called "Almiralty bay" on the Spanish chart, was explored, and an excursion was made in boats into Disenchantment bay as far as Haenke island. "Disenchantment bay," as the name appears on modern charts, was named "Desengaño bay" by Malaspina, as previously stated, in allusion to the frustration of his hopes on not finding a passage leading to the Atlantic. Explorations in Disenchantment bay were checked by ice, which descended from the north and filled all of the inlets north of Haenke island. This is indicated on the map forming plate 7 (page 67), which is reproduced from the atlas accompanying the narrative of Malaspina's voyage. Special interest attaches to this map for the reason that by comparing it with that forming plate 8 (page 75), made 100 years later, the retreat of the glaciers during that interval can be determined.⁷ At the time of Malaspina's expedition, the Hubbard and Dalton glaciers were united, and were probably also joined by some of the neighboring glaciers which do not now reach tide-water; the whole forming a confluent ice stream which occupied all of Disenchantment bay northeast of Haenke island.

⁷ It must be remembered, however, that the map, plate 8, is not from detailed surveys; the portion referred to was sketched from a few stations only and is much generalized.

A portion of the general map of the coast of southern Alaska, showing the route followed by the Descubierta and the Atrevida, and depicting the topography of the adjacent shores, has been reproduced in plate 5. It will be noticed that on this map Lituya bay is called "Pt. des Francais," while Dry bay is designated as "Bering's bay." These and other names were adopted from the maps of La Pérouse. A map of "Bahia de Monti," from Malaspina's report, is reproduced in plate 6.

MAP OF THE ST. ELIAS REGION, AFTER MALASPINA

An extract from Galiano's account of Malaspina's discoveries in Yakutat and Disenchantment bays,⁸ translated by Robert Stein, of the U. S. Geological Survey, is here inserted, in order that the reader may be able to form an independent judgment of the value of the evidence just referred to as bearing on the retreat of the glaciers:

"An observatory was established on shore, and some absolute altitudes were taken in order to furnish a basis for the reckoning of the watches; but the great concourse of Indians, their importunity and thievishness, made it necessary to transfer all the instruments on board. Still the latitude was determined, the watches were regulated, the number of oscillations made by the simple pendulum was observed, and the height of Mount St. Elias was measured, being 6,507.6 varas [17,847 feet] above sea-level. The launches being ready, put to sea on July 2 with the commander of the expedition, in order to reconnoitre the channel promised by the opening, similar to that depicted by Ferrer Maldonado in his voyage; but the small force of the tide noticed at the entrance, and the indications of the natives, made it plain not only that the desired passage did not exist there, but that the extent of the channel was very short; which was also rendered evident by the perpetual frost covering the inner west shore. The launches anchored there, having penetrated into the channel with great difficulty, the oars being clogged by the floating masses of snow; they measured a base, made some marks, gathered various objects and stones for the naturalists, and, having reached the line of perpetual frost, returned to the bay where they had anchored.⁹ They there observed the latitude to be 59° 59' 30", and six azimuths of the sun, which gave the variation of the needle as 32° 49'. Before leaving that anchorage the commander buried a bottle with record of the reconnoissance and possession taken in the name of the king. They called the harbor Desangaño, the opening Bahia de las Bancas, and the island in the interior Haenke, in memory of D. Tadeo Haenke, botanist and naturalist of the expedition. On the third day they set out on their voyage to Mulgrave, where they arrived on the 6th, after reconnoitering various channels and islands north of that port and mapping them."

⁸ Ibid., pp. XCIV–CXVI.

⁹ On the coast of the mainland east of Knight island.—I. C. R.

Following the portion of the narrative above quoted, there is an account of the natives, containing much information of interest to ethnologists, but which it is not necessary to follow in a geographic report. On July 5 the corvettes sailed westward, and made a reconnoissance as far as Montegue island. Returning eastward, they again sighted Mount St. Elias on July 22.

"On the 28th they were three leagues west of the capes which terminate in Bering bay [Dry bay]; the mountain of that name being about five leagues distant from the coast and rising 5,368.3 varas [14,722 feet] above the sea-level, and in latitude 59° 0' 42" and longitude 2° 4' from Port Mulgrave."

Mount Bering does not appear on any map that I have seen. Which of the numerous high peaks in the vicinity of Dry bay should be designated by that name remains to be determined.

In a record of the astronomical work of Malaspina's expedition¹⁰ there are some interesting observations on the position and elevation of Mount St. Elias, a translation of which, by Mr. Stein, is here given:

"True longitude of Mulgrave west of Cadiz, 133° 24' 12". On the same day, the 30th of June [1792], at the observatory of Mulgrave, at 6h. 30' in the morning, the true altitude of the sun was observed to be 16° 14' 20", and its inclination being 23° 11' 30" and the latitude 59° 34' 20", the true azimuth of the sun from north to east was concluded to be 71° 43' 0". But having measured on the same occasion with the theodolite 110° 33' from the sun's vertical to the vertical of Mount St. Elias, the difference between these two quantities is the astronomic azimuth. Hence, from the observatory of Mulgrave, said mountain bears N. 38° 50' W., a distance of 55.1 miles, deduced by means of good observations from the ends of a sufficient base. A quadrant was used to measure the angle of apparent altitude of the mountain, 2° 38' 6", and allowing for terrestrial refraction, which is one-tenth of the distance of 55.1 miles, the true altitude was found to be 2° 34' 39"; whence its elevation above sea-level was concluded to be 2,793 toises [17,860 feet], and the length of the tangent to the horizon, 152 miles, allowance being made for the increase due to terrestrial refraction....

"Lastly, with the rhumb, or astronomic azimuth, and the distance from the observatory of Mulgrave to Mount St. Elias, it was ascertained that that mountain was 43' 15" to the north and 1° 9' to the west, whence its latitude is found to be 60° 17' 35" and its longitude 134° 33' 10" west of Cadiz."

¹⁰ Memorias sobre las observaciones astronomicas hechas por les navegantes Españoles en distintos lugares del globe; Por Don Josef Espinosa y Tello. Madrid, en la Imprente real, Año de 1809, 2 vols., large 8°; vol. 1, pp. 57–60.

Taking the longitude of Cadiz as 6° 19' 07" W. (San Sebastian light-house), the longitude of St. Elias from this determination would be 140° 52' 17" W.

VANCOUVER, 1794.¹¹

¹¹ A Voyage of Discovery to the Northern Pacific Ocean and around the World, 1790–'95; new edition, 6 vols., London, 1801. The citations which follow are from vol. 5, pp. 348–407.

The next vessels to visit Yakutat bay after Malaspina's voyage, so far as known, were the Discovery and Chatham, under command of Captain George Vancouver. This voyage increased knowledge of the geography of southern Alaska more than any that preceded it, and was also of greater importance than any single expedition of later date to that region. The best maps of southern Alaska published at the present day are based largely on the surveys of Vancouver.

The Discovery, under the immediate command of Vancouver, and the Chatham, in charge of Peter Puget, cruised eastward along the southern coast of Alaska in 1794. The Discovery passed the entrance to Yakutat bay without stopping, but the Chatham anchored there, and important surveys were carried on under Puget's directions.

On June 28, the Discovery was in the vicinity of Icy bay, where the shore of the ocean seemed to be composed of solid ice. Eastward from Icy bay the coast is described as "bordered by lowlands rising with a gradual and uniform ascent to the foot-hills of lofty mountains, whose summits are but the base from which Mount St. Elias towers magnificently into the regions of perpetual frost." A low projecting point on the western side of the entrance to Yakutat bay was named "Point Manby." The coast beyond this toward the northeast became less wooded, and seemed to produce only a brownish vegetation, which farther eastward entirely disappeared. The country was then bare and composed of loose stones. The narrative contains an interesting account of the grand coast scenery from St. Elias to the eastern end of the Fairweather range; but this does not at present claim attention.

While the Chatham continued her cruise eastward, Puget ascended Yakutat bay nearly to its head, and also navigated some of the channels between the islands along its eastern shore. A cape on the eastern side, where the bay penetrates the first range of foot-hills, was named "Point Latouche;" but the same landmark had previously been designated "Pa. de la Esperanza" by Malaspina. The bay at the head of the inlet, which Malaspina had named "Desangaño," was named "Digges sound," after one of the officers of the Chatham. Boats were sent to explore this inlet, but found it "closed from side to side by a firm, compact body of ice, beyond which, to the back of the ice, a small inlet appeared to extend N. 55° E. about a league."¹²

¹² Vancouver's Voyage, vol. 5, p. 389.

These observations confirm those made by Malaspina and indicated on the chart reproduced on plate 7, where the ice front is represented as reaching as far south as Haenke island.

The evidence furnished by Malaspina and Vancouver as to the former extent of the glaciers at the head of Yakutat bay is in harmony with observations made by Vancouver's party in Icy strait and Cross sound.¹³ Early in July, 1794, these straits were found to be heavily encumbered with floating ice. At the present time but little ice is met with in that region. On Vancouver's charts there is no indication that he was aware of the existence of Glacier bay, although one of his officers, in navigating Icy strait, passed its immediate entrance. These records, although somewhat indefinite and of negative character, indicate that the fields of floating ice at the mouth of Glacier bay were much more extensive a hundred years ago than at present; but they do not show where the glaciers of that region formerly terminated.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 417–421.

After the return of the Chatham's boats from the exploration of Disenchantment bay, an exploration of the eastern shore of Yakutat bay was made. The following extract indicates the character of work done there:

"Digges' sound [Disenchantment bay] was the only place in the bay that presented the least prospect of any interior navigation, and this was necessarily very limited by the close connected range of lofty snowy mountains that stretched along the coast at no great distance from the seaside. Mr. Puget's attention was next directed to the opening in the low land, but as the wind was variable and adverse to the progress of the vessel, a boat was again despatched to continue the investigation of these shores, which are compact from Point Latouche and were then free from ice. This opening was found to be formed by an island about two miles long, in a direction S. 50° E. and N. 50° W., and about a mile broad, lying at the distance of about half a mile from the mainland. Opposite to the south part of this, named by Mr. Puget KNIGHT'S ISLAND, is Eleanor's cove, which is the eastern extremity of Beering's [Yakutat] bay, in latitude 59° 44', longitude 220° 51'. Knight's island admits of a navigable passage all round it, but there is an islet situated between it and the mainland on its northeast side. From Eleanor's cove the coast takes a direction S. 30° W. about six miles to the east point of a channel leading to the southwest between the continent and some islands that lie off it. This was considered to lead along the shores of the mainland to Point Mulgrave, and in the event of its proving navigable, the examination of the bay would have been complete, and the vessel brought to our appointed place of meeting, which was now supposed to be no very great distance."

In endeavoring to reach Port Mulgrave by a channel leading between the islands on the eastern side of the bay and the mainland, the Chatham grounded, and was gotten off with considerable difficulty. Many observations concerning the geography and the natives are recorded in the narrative of this exploration.

BELCHER, 1837.¹⁴

¹⁴ Narrative of a Voyage round the World, performed in the ship Sulphur during the years 1836–1842; by Captain Sir Edward Belcher: 2 vols., 8°, London, 1843.

The next account¹⁵ of explorations around Yakutat bay that has come to hand is by Sir Edward Belcher, who visited that coast in Her Majesty's ship Sulphur in 1837.

¹⁵ A fort was built by the Russians, in 1795, on the strip of land separating Bay de Monti from the ocean, and was colonized by convicts from Russia. In 1803, all of the settlers were killed and the fort was destroyed by the Yakutat Indians. So complete was this massacre that no detailed account of it has ever appeared. (Alaska and its Resources, by W. H. Dall, 1870, pp. 316, 317, 323.)

In the narrative of this voyage, a brief account is given of the ice cliffs at Icy bay, which are stated to have a height of about thirty feet and to present the appearance of veined marble. Where the ice was exposed to the sea it was excavated into alcoves and archways, recalling to the narrator's mind the Chalk cliffs of England. "Point Riou," as named by Vancouver, was not recognized, and the inference seems to be that it was formed of ice and was dissolved away between the visits of Vancouver and Belcher.

Accompanying the narrative of Belcher's voyage is an illustration showing Mount St. Elias as it appears from the sea near Icy bay, which represents the mountain more accurately than some similar pictures published more recently.

The Sulphur anchored in Port Mulgrave; but no account is given of the character of the surrounding country.

TEBENKOF, 1852.¹⁶

¹⁶ Atlas of the Northwest Coast of America from Bering strait to Cape Corrientes and the Aleutian Islands [etc.]: 2°, St. Petersburg, 1852. With index and hydrographic observations: 8°, St. Petersburg, 1852.

Tebenkof's notes, which are often referred to by writers on Alaska, consist principally of compilations from reports of Russian traders, which were intended to accompany and explain an atlas of the shores of northwestern America, published in 1852 in St. Petersburg and in Sitka.

Map number 7 of the atlas represents the southern coast of Alaska from Lituya bay westward to Icy bay. On the same sheet there is a more detailed chart of the islands along the eastern border of Yakutat bay.

The height of St. Elias is given as 17,000 feet; its position, latitude 61° 2' 6" and longitude 140° 4', distant 30 miles from the sea.¹⁷ It is stated that in 1839 the mountain "began at times to smoke through a crater on its southeastern slope." At the time of an earthquake at Sitka (1847) it is said to have emitted flames and ashes.

¹⁷ In a foot-note on page 33 it is stated that Captain Vasilef, in the ship Otkrytie (Discovery), ascertained the height of Mount Fairweather to be 13,946 feet.

It will be seen from the account of the exploration carried on last summer that Mount St. Elias is composed of stratified rocks, with no indication of volcanic origin; and these reports of eruption must consequently be considered erroneous.

The low country between Mount St. Elias and the sea is described by Tebenkof as a tundra covered with forests and grass; "through cracks in the gravelly soil, ice could be seen beneath." More recent knowledge shows that this statement also is erroneous. The adjacent ocean is stated to be shallow, with shelving bottom; at a distance of half a verst, five to twelve fathoms were obtained, and at two miles from land, thirty to forty fathoms (of seven feet).

The Pimpluna rocks are said to have been discovered in 1779 by the Spanish captain Arteiga. They were also seen in 1794 by the helmsman Talin, in the ship Orel, and named after his vessel. These observations are interesting, and indicate that possibly there may be submerged moraines in the region where these rocks are reported to exist.

Many other observations are recorded concerning the mountains and the bays in the vicinity of Yakutat. While of interest to navigation and to geographers, these have no immediate connection with the region explored during the recent expedition.

UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY, 1874,¹⁸ 1880.¹⁹

¹⁸ Appendix No. 10, Report of the Superintendent of the U. S. Coast Survey for the year 1875: Washington, 1878, pp. 157–188.

¹⁹ Pacific Coast Pilot, Alaska, part 1: Washington, 1883, p. 212.

The surveys carried on in 1874 by the United States Coast Survey on the shores of Alaska embraced the region about Yakutat bay. They were conducted by W. H. Dall and Marcus Baker. Besides the survey of the coast-line, determinations were made of the heights and positions of several mountain peaks between Glacier bay and Cook inlet. Dall's account of this survey contains a brief sketch of previous explorations and a summary of the measurements of the higher peaks of the region. This material has been used on another page in discussing the height of Mount St. Elias.

Besides the geographic data gathered by the United States Coast Survey, many observations were made on geology and on the glaciers of the region about Yakutat bay and Mount St. Elias. Exception must be taken, in the light of more recent explorations, to some of the conclusions reached in this connection, as will appear in the chapter devoted to geology and glaciers.

A description of the St. Elias region in the Pacific Coast Pilot supplements the paper in the coast survey report for 1875. This is an exhaustive compilation from all available sources of information interesting to navigators. It contains, besides, a valuable summary of what was known at the time of its publication concerning the history and physical features of the country to which it relates. In this publication the true character of the Malaspina glacier was first recorded and its name proposed. The description is as follows:

"At Point Manby and eastward to the Kwik river the shore was bordered by trees, apparently willows and alders, with a somewhat denser belt a little farther back. Behind this rises a bluff or bank of high land, as described by various navigators. About the vicinity of Tebienkoff's Nearer Point the trees cease, but begin again near the river. The bluff or table-land behind rises higher than the river valley and completely hides it from the southward, and is in summer bare of vegetation (except a few rare patches on its face) and apparently is composed of glacial débris, much of which is of a reddish color. In May, 1874, when observed by the U. S. Coast Survey party of that year, the extensive flattened top of this table-land or plateau was covered with a smooth and even sheet of pure white snow. In the latter part of June, 1880, however, this snow had melted, and for the first time the real and most extraordinary character of this plateau was revealed. Within the beach and extending in a northwesterly direction to the valley behind it, at the foot of the St. Elias Alps an undetermined distance, this plateau, or a large part of it, is one great field of buried ice. Almost everywhere nothing is visible but bowlders, dirt and gravel; but at the time mentioned, back of the bight between Point Manby and Nearer Point, for a space of several square miles the coverlid of dirt had fallen in, owing to the melting of the ice beneath, and revealed a surface of broken pinnacles of ice, each crowned by a patch of dirt, standing close to one another like a forest of prisms, these decreasing in height from the summit of the plateau gradually in a sort of semicircular sweep toward the beach, near which, however, the dirt and débris again predominate, forming a sort of terminal moraine to this immense, buried, immovable glacier, for it is nothing else. Trains of large bowlders were visible here and there, and the general trend of the glacier seemed to be northwest and southeast.

"Between Disenchantment bay and the foot of Mount St. Elias, on the flanks of the Alps, seventeen glaciers were counted, of which about ten were behind this plateau, but none are of very large size, and the sum total of them all seemed far too little to supply the waste of the plateau if it were to possess motion. The lower ends of these small glaciers come down into the river valley before mentioned and at right angles in general to the trend of the plateau. To the buried glacier the U. S. Coast Survey has applied the name of Malaspina, in honor of that distinguished and unfortunate explorer. No connection could be seen between the small glaciers and the Malaspina plateau, as the former dip below the level of the summit of the latter. The Malaspina had no névé, nor was there any high land in the direction of its axis as far as the eye could reach. Everywhere, except where the pinnacles protruded and in a few spots on the face of the bluff, it was covered with a thick stratum of soil, gravel and stones, here and there showing small patches of bright green herbage. The bluff westward from Point Manby may probably prove of the same character."

Mount Cook and Mount Vancouver are named in the Pacific Coast Pilot, and their elevations and positions are definitely stated. Mount Malaspina was also named, but its position is not given. During the expedition of last summer it was found impracticable to decide definitely to which peak the name of the great navigator was applied. So existing nomenclature was followed as nearly as possible by attaching Malaspina's name to a peak about eleven miles east of Mount St. Elias. Its position is indicated on the accompanying map, plate 8 (page 75).

Several charts of the southern coast of Alaska accompany the reports of the United States Coast Survey for 1875, referred to above. A part of these have been independently published. These charts were used in mapping the coast-line as it appears on plate 8, and were frequently consulted while writing the following pages.

NEW YORK TIMES EXPEDITION, 1886.

An expedition sent out by the New York Times, in charge of Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, for the purpose of making geographic explorations and climbing Mount St. Elias, left Sitka on the U. S. S. Pinta, on July 10, 1886, and reached Yakutat bay two days later. As it was found impracticable to obtain the necessary assistance from the Indians to continue the voyage to Icy bay, whence the start inland was planned to be made, Captain N. E. Nichols, the commander of the Pinta, concluded to take the expedition to its destination in his vessel. On July 17 a landing was made through the surf at Icy bay, and exploration at once began.

The party consisted of Lieutenant Schwatka, in charge; Professor William Libbey, Jr.; and Lieutenant H. W. Seton-Karr. The camp hands were John Dalton, Joseph Woods, and several Indian packers.²⁰

²⁰ The accounts of this expedition are as follows: Report from Lieutenant Schwatka in the New York Times, October 17, 1886; Some of the Geographical Features of Southeastern Alaska, by William Libbey, Jr., in Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., 1886, pp. 279–300; Shores and Alps of Alaska, by H. W. Seton-Karr, London, 1887, 8°, pp. L–XCV, 142–148; The Alpine Regions of Alaska, by Lieutenant Seton-Karr, in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. IX, 1887, pp. 269–285; The Expedition of "The New York Times" (1886), by Lieutenant Schwatka, in The Century Magazine, April, 1891, pp. 865–872.

From Icy bay the expedition proceeded inland, for about sixteen miles, in a line leading nearly due north, toward the summit of Mount St. Elias. The highest point reached, 7,200 feet, was on the foot-hills of the main range now called the Karr hills. The time occupied by the expedition, after leaving Icy bay, was nine or ten days. So far as known, no systematic surveys were carried on.

An interesting account of this expedition appeared in Seton-Karr's book, "The Shores and Alps of Alaska." Many observations on the glaciers and moraines of the region explored are recorded in this work. The map published with it has been used in compiling the western portion of the map forming plate 8, where the route of the expedition is indicated. Another account, especially valuable for its records of scientific observations, by Professor Libbey, was published by the American Geographic Society. The Guyot, Agassiz and Tyndall glaciers, the Chaix hills, and Lake Castani received their names during this expedition.

Lieutenant Schwatka's graphic and entertaining account of this expedition, published in The Century Magazine for April, 1891, gives many details of the exploration and illustrates many of the characteristic features of southern Alaska.

TOPHAM EXPEDITION, 1888.

An expedition conducted by Messrs. W. H. and Edwin Topham, of London, George Broka, of Brussels, and William Williams, of New York, was made in 1888. Like the Times expedition, it had for its main object the ascent of Mount St. Elias.

Icy bay was reached, by means of canoes from Yakutat bay, on July 13, and an inland journey was made northward which covered a large part of the area traversed by the previous expedition. The highest elevation reached, according to aneroid barometer and boiling-point measurements, was 11,460 feet. This was on the southern side of St. Elias.

The only accounts of this expedition which have come to my notice are an interesting article by William Williams in Scribner's Magazine,²¹ and a more detailed report by H. W. Topham, accompanied by a map²² and by a fine illustration of Mount St. Elias, in the Alpine Journal.²³

²¹ New York, April, 1889, pp. 387–403.

²² Topham's map was used in compiling the western portion of the map forming plate 8, and his route is there indicated.

²³ London, August, 1889, pp. 245–371.

This brief review of explorations carried on in the St. Elias region previous to the expedition sent out in 1890 by the National Geographic Society is incomplete in many particulars,²⁴ but will indicate the most promising sources of information concerning the country described in the following pages.

²⁴ Yakutat bay has been visited by vessels of the United States Navy and United States Revenue Marine and by numerous trading vessels; but reports of observations made during these voyages have not been found during a somewhat exhaustive search of literature relating to Alaska.

PART II.

NARRATIVE OF THE ST. ELIAS EXPEDITION OF 1890.

ORGANIZATION.

A long-cherished desire to study the geography, geology, and glaciers of the region around Mount St. Elias was finally gratified when, in the summer of 1890, the National Geographic Society made it possible for me to undertake an expedition to that part of Alaska.

The expedition was organized under the joint auspices of the National Geographic Society and the United States Geological Survey, but was greatly assisted by individuals who felt an interest in the extension of geographic knowledge. For the inception of exploration and for securing the necessary funds, credit is due Mr. Willard D. Johnson.

The names of those who subscribed to the exploration fund of the Society are as follows:

Boynton Leach.	Henry Gannett.
Everett Hayden.	Charles J. Bell.
Richardson Clover.	J. S. Diller.
C. M. McCarteney.	J. W. Powell.
C. A. Williams.	J. G. Judd.
Willard D. Johnson.	A. Graham Bell.
Israel C. Russell.	Gardiner G. Hubbard.
Gilbert Thompson.	A. W. Greely.
Harry King.	J. W. Dobbins.
Morris Bien.	J. W. Hays.
Wm. B. Powell.	Edmund Alton.
Z. T. Carpenter.	Bailey Willis.
Charles Nordhoff.	E. S. Hosmer.
Rogers Birnie, Jr.

I was chosen by the Board of Managers of the National Geographic Society and by the Director of the United States Geological Survey to take charge of the expedition and to carry on geological and glacial studies. Mr. Mark B. Kerr, topographer on the Geological Survey, was assigned as an assistant, with the duty of making a topographical map of the region explored. Mr. E. S. Hosmer, of Washington, D. C., volunteered his services as general assistant.²⁵

²⁵ Copies of all instructions governing the work of the expedition are given in [Appendix A].

Mr. Kerr left Washington on May 24 for San Francisco, where he made arrangements for his special work, and reported to me at Seattle on June 15. I left Washington on May 25 and went directly to Seattle, where the necessary preparations for exploring an unknown and isolated region were made.

From the large number of frontiersmen and sailors who applied for positions on the expedition, seven men were selected as camp hands. The foreman of this force was J. H. Christie, of Seattle, who had spent the previous winter in charge of an expedition in the Olympian mountains, and was well versed in all that pertains to frontier life. The other camp hands were J. H. Crumback, L. S. Doney, W. L. Lindsley, William Partridge, Thomas Stamy, and Thomas White.

The individual members of the party will be mentioned frequently during this narrative; but I wish to state at the beginning that very much of the success of the enterprise was due to the hard and faithful work of the camp hands, to each one of whom I feel personally indebted.

Two dogs, "Bud" and "Tweed," belonging to Mr. Christie, also became members of the expedition.

All camp supplies, including tents, blankets, rations, etc., were purchased at Seattle. Rations for ten men for one hundred days, on the basis of the subsistence furnished by the United States Geological Survey, were purchased and suitably packed for transportation in a humid climate. Twenty-five tin cans were obtained, each measuring 6 x 12 x 14 inches, and in each a mixed ration sufficient for one man for fifteen days was packed and hermetically sealed. These rations, thus secured against moisture and in convenient shape for carrying on the back (or "packing"), were for use above the timber line, where cooking was possible only by means of oil stoves. The remainder of the supplies, intended for use where fuel for camp-fires could be obtained, were secured either in tin cans or in canvas sacks.

For cooking above timber line, two double-wick oil stoves were provided, the usual cast-iron bases being replaced by smaller reservoirs of tin, in order to avoid unnecessary weight. Coal oil was carried in five-gallon cans, but a few rectangular cans holding one gallon each were provided for use while on the march. Subsequent experience proved that this arrangement was satisfactory.

Four seven-by-seven tents, with ridge ropes, and two pyramidal nine-by-nine center-pole tents, with flies, were provided, all made of cotton drilling. The smaller tents were for use in the higher camps, and the larger ones for the base camps. The tents were as light as seemed practicable, and were found to answer well the purpose for which they were intended.

Each man was supplied with one double Hudson Bay blanket, a water-proof coat, a water-proof hat (the most serviceable being the "sou'westers" used by seamen), and an alpenstock.²⁶ Each man also carried a sheet made of light duck, seven feet square, to protect his blankets and to be used as a shelter-tent if required. Each member of the party was also required to have heavy boots or shoes, and suitable woolen clothing. Each man was furnished with two pieces of hemp "cod-line," 50 feet in length, to be used in packing blankets and rations. The lines were doubled many times, so as to distribute the weight on the shoulders, and were connected with two leather straps for buckling about the package to be carried. The cod-lines were used instead of ordinary pack-straps, for the reason that they distribute the weight on the shoulder over a broader area, and also because they can be made immediately available for climbing, crossing streams, etc., when required. Several extra lines of the same material were also taken as a reserve, or to be used in roping the party together when necessary. Several of the party carried rifles, for each of which a hundred rounds of fixed ammunition were issued. Two ice-axes for the party were also provided.

²⁶ Light rubber cloth was ordered from San Francisco for the purpose of allowing each man a water-proof sheet to place under his blankets, but was not received in time to be used.

A canvas boat was made by the men while en route for the field, but there was no occasion to use it, except as a cover for a cache left at one of the earlier camps. Subsequent experience showed that snow-shoes and one or two sleds would have been serviceable; but these were not taken.

Our instruments were furnished by the United States Geological Survey. The list included one transit, one gradienter, one sextant, two prismatic compasses, one compass clinometer, four pocket thermometers, two psychrometers, one field-glass, two mercurial barometers, three aneroids, steel tape-lines, and two photographic outfits.

FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA.

Preparations having been completed, the expedition sailed from Seattle June 16, on the steamer Queen, belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, in command of Captain James Carroll, and reached Sitka on the morning of June 24. This portion of our voyage was through the justly celebrated "inland passage" of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska, and was in every way delightful. We touched at Victoria and Wrangell, and, after threading the Wrangell narrows, entered Frederick sound, where the first floating ice was seen. The bergs were from a neighboring glacier, which enters the sea at the head of a deep inlet, too far away to be seen from the course followed by the Queen. The route northward led through Stephens passage, and afforded glimpses of glaciers both on the mainland and on Admiralty island. In Taku inlet several hours were spent in examining the glaciers, two of which come down to the sea. One on the western side of the fjord, an ice-stream known as the Norris glacier, descends through a deep valley and expands into a broad ice-foot on approaching the water, though it is not washed by the waves, owing to an accumulation of mud about its extremity. Another ice-stream is the Taku glacier, situated at the head of the inlet. It comes boldly down to the water, and ends in a splendid sea-cliff of azure blue, some 250 feet high. The adjacent waters are covered with icebergs shed by the glacier. Some of the smaller fragments were hoisted on board the Queen for table use. The bold, rocky shores of the inlet are nearly bare of vegetation, and indicate by their polished and striated surfaces that glaciers of far greater magnitude than those now existing formerly flowed through this channel.

After leaving Taku inlet, a day was spent at Juneau; and then the Queen steamed up Lynn canal to Pyramid harbor, near its head. For picturesque beauty, this is probably the finest of the fjords of Alaska. Several glaciers on each side of the inlet come down nearly to the sea, and all the higher mountains are buried beneath perpetual snow. On returning from Lynn canal, the Queen visited Glacier bay, and here passengers were allowed a few hours on shore at the Muir glacier. The day of our visit was unusually fine, and a splendid view of the great ice-stream with its many tributaries was obtained from a hill-top about a thousand feet high, on its eastern border. The glacier discharges into the head of the bay and forms a magnificent line of ice-cliffs over two hundred feet high and three miles in extent.

This portion of the coast of Alaska has been described by several writers; yet its bleak shores are still in large part unexplored. To the west of the bay rise the magnificent peaks of the Fairweather range, from which flow many great ice-streams. The largest of the glaciers descending from these mountains into Glacier bay is called the Pacific glacier. Like the Muir glacier, it discharges vast numbers of icebergs into the sea.

The day after leaving Glacier bay we arrived at Sitka, and as soon as practicable called on Lieutenant-Commander O. F. Farenholt, of the U. S. S. Pinta, who had previously received instructions from the Secretary of the Navy to take us to Yakutak bay. We also paid our respects to the Governor and other Alaskan officials, and made a few final preparations for the start westward.

FROM SITKA TO YAKUTAT BAY.

All of our effects having been transferred to the Pinta, we put to sea early on the morning of June 25.

Honorable Lyman E. Knapp, Governor of Alaska, taking advantage of the sailing of the Pinta, accompanied us on the voyage. Mr. Henry Boursin, census enumerator, also joined us for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the Indians at Yakutak.

The morning we left Sitka was misty, with occasional showers; but even these unfavorable conditions could not obscure the beauty of the wild, densely wooded shore along which we steamed. The weather throughout the voyage was thick and foggy and the sea rough. We anchored in De Monti bay, the first indentation on the eastern shore of Yakutat bay, late the following afternoon, without having obtained so much as a glimpse of the magnificent scenery of the rugged Fairweather range.

At Yakutat we found two small Indian villages, one on Khantaak island and the other on the mainland to the eastward (both shown on plate 8). The village on Khantaak island is the older of the two, and consists of six houses built along the water's edge. The houses are made of planks, each hewn from a single log, after the manner of the Thlinkets generally. They are rectangular, and have openings in the roofs, with wind guards, for the escape of smoke. The fires, around which the families gather, are built in the centers of the spaces below. The houses are entered by means of oval openings, elevated two feet above the ground on platforms along their fronts. In the interior of each there is a rectangular space about twenty feet square surrounded by raised platforms, the outer portions of which are shut off by partitions and divided into smaller chambers.

The canoes used at Yakutat are each hewn from a single spruce log, and are good examples of the boats in use throughout southern Alaska. They are of all sizes, from a small craft scarcely large enough to hold a single Indian to graceful boats forty or fifty feet in length and capable of carrying a ton of merchandise with a dozen or more men. They have high, overreaching stems and sterns, which give them a picturesque, gondola-like appearance.

The village on the mainland is less picturesque, if such a term may be allowed, than the group of houses already described, but it is of the same type. Near at hand, along the shore to the southward, there are two log houses, one of which is used at present as a mission by Reverend Carl J. Hendriksen and his assistant, the other being occupied as a trading post by Sitka merchants.

The Yakutat Indians are the most westerly branch of the great Thlinket family which inhabits all of southeastern Alaska and a portion of British Columbia. In intelligence they are above the average of Indians generally, and are of a much higher type than the native inhabitants of the older portion of the United States. They are quick to learn the ways of the white man, and are especially shrewd in bargaining. They are canoe Indians par excellence, and pass a large part of their lives on the water in quest of salmon, seals, and sea-otter. During the summer of our visit, about thirty sea-otter were taken. They are usually shot in the primitive manner with copper-pointed arrows, although repeating rifles of the most improved patterns are owned by the natives, in spite of existing laws against selling breech-loading arms to Indians. The fur of the sea-otter is acknowledged to be the most beautiful, and is the most highly prized of all pelts. Those taken at Yakutat during our visit were sold at an average price of about seventy-five dollars. This, together with the sale of less valuable skins and the money received for baskets, etc., made by the women for the tourist trade in Sitka, brought a considerable revenue to the village. Improvident, like nearly all Indians, the Yakutat villagers soon spend at the trading post the money earned in this way.

The Yakutats belong without question to the Thlinket stock; but visits from tribes farther westward, who travel in skin boats, are known to have been made, and it seems probable that some mixture of Thlinket and Innuit blood may occur in the natives at Yakutat. But if such admixture has occurred, the Innuit element is so small that it escapes the notice of one not skilled in ethnology.

We found Mr. Hendriksen most kind and obliging, and are indebted to him for many favors and great assistance. Arrangements were made with him for reading a base-barometer three times a day during July and August. He also assisted us by acting as an interpreter, and in hiring Indians and canoes.

The weather continued thick and stormy after reaching Yakutat bay, and Captain Farenholt did not think it advisable to take his vessel up the main inlet, where many dangers were reported to exist. A canoe having been purchased from the trader and others hired from the Indians, a start was made from the head of Yakutat bay early on the morning of June 28, in company with two of the Pinta's boats loaded with supplies, under the command of Ensign C. W. Jungen.

CANOE TRIP UP YAKUTAT BAY.

Bidding good-bye to our friends on the Pinta, to whom we were indebted for many favors, we started for our trip up the bay in a pouring rain-storm. Our way at first led through the narrow, placid water-ways dividing the islands on the eastern side of the bay. The islands and the shores of the mainland are densely wooded, and appeared picturesque and inviting even through the veil of mist and rain that shrouded them. The forests consist principally of spruce trees, so dense and having such a tangle of underbrush that it is only with the greatest difficulty that one can force a way through them; while the ground beneath the forest, and even the trunks and branches of the living trees, are covered and festooned with luxuriant growths of mosses and lichens. Our trip along these wooded shores, but half revealed through the drifting mist, was novel and enjoyable in spite of discomforts due to the rain. We rejoiced at the thought that we were nearing the place where the actual labors of the expedition would begin; we were approaching the unknown; visions of unexplored regions filled with new wonders occupied our fancies, and made us eager to press on.

About noon on the first day we pitched our tents on a strip of shingle skirting the shore of the mainland to the east of Knight island. The Pinta's boats spread their white wings and sailed away to the southward before a freshening wind, and our last connection with civilization was broken. As one of the frontiersmen of our party remarked, we were "at home once more." It may appear strange to some that any one could apply such a term to a camp on the wild shore of an unexplored country; but the Bohemian spirit is so strong in some breasts, and the restraint of civilization so irksome, that the homing instinct is reversed and leads irresistibly to the wilderness and to the silent mountain tops.

The morning after arriving at our first camp, Kerr, Christie, and Hendriksen, with all the camp hands except two, went on with the canoes, and in a few hours reached the entrance of Disenchantment bay. They found a camping place about twelve miles ahead, on a narrow strip of shingle beneath the precipices of Point Esperanza, and there established our second camp.

My necessary delay at Camp 1 was utilized, so far as possible, in learning what I could concerning the adjacent country, and in making a beginning in the study of its geology. Our camp was at the immediate base of the mountains, and on the northeastern side of the wide plateau bordering the continent. The plateau stretches southeastward for twenty or thirty miles, and is low and heavily forested. The eastern shore of the bay near our first camp is formed of bluffs about 150 feet high, which have been eaten back by the waves so as to expose fine sections of the strata of sand, gravel and bowlders of which the plateau is composed. All the lowlands bordering the mountains have, apparently, a common history, and doubtless owe their origin principally to the deposition of débris brought from the mountains by former glaciers. When this material was deposited, or soon afterward, the land was depressed about 150 feet lower than at present, as is shown by a terrace cut along the base of the mountains at that elevation. The steep mountain face extending northwestward from Camp 1 to the mouth of Disenchantment bay bears evidence of being the upheaved side of a fault of quite recent origin. The steep inclination and shattered condition of the rocks along this line are evidently due to the crushing which accompanied the displacement.

In the wild gorge above our first camp, a small glacier was found descending to within 500 feet of the sea-level, and giving rise to a wild, roaring stream of milky water. Efforts to reach the glacier were frustrated by the density of the dripping vegetation and by the clouds that obscured the mountains.

A canoe trip was made to a rocky islet between Knight island and the mainland toward the north. The islet, like the rocks in the adjacent mountain range, is composed of sandstone, greatly shattered and seamed, and nearly vertical in attitude. Its surface was densely carpeted with grass and brilliant flowers. Many sea birds had their homes there. From its summit a fine view was obtained of the cloud-capped mountains toward the northeast, of the dark forest covering Knight island, and of the broad plateau toward the southeast. Some of the most charming effects in the scenery of the forest-clad and mist-covered shores of Alaska are due to the wreaths of vapor ascending from the deep forests during the interval in which the warm sunlight shines through the clouds; and on the day of our visit to the islet, the forests, when not concealed by mist, sent up smoke-like vapor wreaths of many fantastic shapes to mingle with the clouds in which the higher mountains disappeared.

At Camp 1 the personnel of the party was unexpectedly reduced. Mr. Hosmer was ill, and remained with me at camp instead of pushing on with Kerr and Christie; and the weather continuing stormy, he concluded to abandon the expedition and return to the mission at Port Mulgrave. Having secured the services of an Indian who chanced to pass our camp in his canoe, Mr. Hosmer bade us good-bye, ensconced himself in the frail craft, and started for sunnier lands. It was subsequently learned that he reached Yakutak without mishap, and a few days later sailed for Sitka in a small trading schooner. Our force during the remainder of the season, not including Mr. Hendriksen and the Indians, whose services were engaged for only a few days, numbered nine men all told.

On the evening of June 30 we had a bright camp-fire blazing on the beach to welcome the returning party. Near sunset a canoe appeared in the distance, and a shot was fired as it came round a bend in the shore. We felt sure that our companions were returning, and piled drift-wood on the roaring camp-fire to cheer them after their hard day's work on the water. As the canoe approached, each dip of the paddle sent a flash of light to us, and we could distinguish the men at their work; but we soon discovered that it was occupied not by our own party but by Indians returning from a seal hunt in Disenchantment bay. They brought their canoe high on the beach, and made themselves at home about our camp-fire. There were seven or eight well-built young men in the party, all armed with guns. In former times such an arrival would have been regarded with suspicion; but thanks to the somewhat frequent visits of war vessels to Yakutat, and also to the labors of missionaries, the wild spirits of the Indians have been greatly subdued and reduced to semi-civilized condition during the past quarter of a century.

Just as the long twilight deepened into night, another craft came around the distant headland, but less swiftly than the former one; and soon our picturesque canoe, with Christie at the stern steering with a paddle in true Indian fashion, grated on the shingle beach. Christie has spent many years of his life with the Indians of the Northwest, and has adopted some of their habits. On beginning frontier life once more, he discarded the hat of the white man, and wore a blue cloth tied tightly around his forehead and streaming off in loose ends behind. The change was welcome, for it added to the picturesque appearance of the party.

The men, weary with their long row against currents and head-winds, greatly enjoyed the camp-fire. Our Indian visitors, after lunching lightly on the leaf-stalks of a plant resembling celery (Archangelica), which grows abundantly everywhere on the lowlands of southern Alaska, departed toward Yakutat. Supper was served in one of the large tents, and we all rolled ourselves in our blankets for the night.

The next day, July 1, we abandoned Camp 1, passed by Camp 2, and late in the afternoon reached the northwestern side of Yakutat bay, opposite Point Esperanza. Our trip along the wild shore, against which a heavy surf was breaking, was full of novelty and interest. The mountains rose sheer from the water to a height of two or three thousand feet. About their bases, like dark drapery, following all the folds of the mountain side, ran a band of vegetation; but the spruce forests had mostly disappeared, and only a few trees were seen here and there in the deeper cañons. The position of the terrace along the base of the mountain, first noticed at Camp 1, could be plainly traced, although densely covered with bushes. The mountain peaks above were all sharp and angular, indicating at a glance that they had never been subjected to glacial action. The sandstone and shales forming the naked cliffs are fractured and crushed, and are evidently yielding rapidly to the weather; but the characteristic red color due to rock decay could not be seen. The prevailing tone of the mountains, when not buried beneath vegetation or covered with snow, is a cold gray. Bright, warm, summer skies are needed to reveal the variety and beauty of that forbidding region.

Our large canoe behaved well, although heavily loaded. Sometimes the wind was favorable, when an extemporized sail lessened the fatigue of the trip. The landing on the northwestern shore was effected, through a light surf, on a sandy beach heavily encumbered with icebergs. As it was hazardous to beach the large canoe with its load of boxes and bags, the heavy freight was transferred, a few pieces at a time, to smaller canoes, each manned by a single Indian, and all was safely landed beyond the reach of the breakers. Camp 3 was established on the sandy beach just above the reach of the tide and near the mouth of a roaring brook. The drift-wood along the shore furnished abundant fuel for a blazing camp-fire; our tents were pitched, and once more we felt at home.

Two canoes were dispatched, in care of Doney, to the camp on the opposite shore (Camp 2), with instructions to bring over the equipments left there. Kerr went over also for the purpose of making a topographic station on the bluff forming Point Esperanza should the morrow's weather permit.

It was curious to note the care which our Indians took of their canoes. Not only were they drawn high up on the beach, out of the reach of all possible tides, but each canoe was swathed in wet cloths, especially at the prow and stern, to prevent them from drying and cracking. The canoes, being fashioned from a single spruce log, are especially liable to split if allowed to dry thoroughly.

The day after our arrival, all of our party and all of our camp outfit were assembled at Camp 3. Mr. Hendriksen and our Indian friends took their departure, and the work for which we had come so far was actually begun.

BASE CAMP ON THE SHORE OF YAKUTAT BAY.

About the tents at Camp 3 the rank grass grew waist-high, sheltering the strawberries and dwarf raspberries that bloomed beneath. A little way back from the shore, clumps of alders, interspersed with spruce trees, marked the beginning of the forest which covered the hills toward the west and southwest. Toward the north rose rugged mountains, their summits shrouded in mist; in the steep gorges on their sides the ends of glaciers gleamed white, like foaming cataracts descending from cloudland.

The day following our arrival dawned bright and beautiful. Every cloud vanished from the mountains as by magic, revealing their magnificent summits in clear relief. We found ourselves at the base of a rugged mountain range extending far southeastward and northwestward, its first rampart so breached as to allow the waters of the ocean to extend into the very midst of the great peaks beyond. Through this opening we had a splendid view of the snow-clad mountains filling the northern sky and stretching away in lessening perspective toward the east until they blended with the distant clouds.

Topographic work was started, and the preparation of "packs" for the journey inland was begun at once; and all hands were kept busy. A base-line was measured by Mr. Kerr, and a beginning was made in the development of a system of triangulation which was carried on throughout the season.

Our stay at the camp on the shore extended over a week, and enabled us to become familiar with many of the changes in the rugged scenery surrounding Yakutat bay. The bay itself was covered with icebergs for most of the time. Owing to the prevailing winds and the action of shore currents, the ice accumulated on the coast adjacent to our camp. For many days the beach toward both the north and the south, as far as the eye could reach, was piled high with huge masses of blue and white ice. When the bay was rough, the surf roared angrily among the stranded bergs and, dashing over them, formed splendid sheets of foam; while on bright, sunny days the bay gleamed and flashed in the sunlight as the summer winds gently rippled its surface, and the thousands of icebergs crowding the azure plain seemed a numberless fleet of fairy boats with crystal hulls and fantastic sails of blue and white. When the long summer days drew to a close and gave place to the soft northern twilight, which in summer lasts until the glow of the returning sun is seen in the east, the sea and mountains assumed a soft, mysterious beauty never realized by dwellers in more southern climes. The hours of twilight were so enchanting, the varying shades and changing tints on the mighty snow-fields robing the mountains were so exquisite in their gradations that, even when weary with many hours of toil, the explorer could not resist the charm, and paced the sandy shore until the night was far spent. Sometimes in the twilight hours, long after the sun disappeared, the summits of the majestic peaks toward the east were transformed by the light of the after-glow into mountains of flame. As the light faded, the cold shadow of the world crept higher and higher up the crystal slopes until only the topmost spires and pinnacles were gilded by the sunset glow. At such times, when our eyes were weary with watching the gorgeous transformation of the snow-covered mountains and were turned to the far-reaching seaward view, we would be startled by the sight of a vast city, with battlements, towers, minarets, and domes of fantastic architecture, rising where we knew that only the berg-covered waters extended. The appearance of these phantom cities was a common occurrence during the twilight hours. Although we knew at once that the ghostly spires were but a trick of the mirage, yet their ever-changing shapes and remarkable mimicry of human habitations were so striking that they never lost their novelty; and they were never the same on two successive evenings. One of the most common deceptions of the mirage is the transformation of icebergs into the semblance of fountains gushing from the sea and expanding into graceful, sheaf-like shapes. The strangest freaks due to the refraction of light on hot deserts, which are usually supposed to be the home of the mirage, do not excite the traveler's wonder so much as the phantom cities seen in the uncertain twilight amid the ice-packs of the north.

When the slowly deepening twilight transformed mountains and seas into a dreamland picture, the harvest moon, strangely out of place in far northern skies, spread a sheet of silver behind the dark headlands toward the southeast, and then slowly appeared, not rising boldly toward the zenith, but tracing a low arch in the southern heavens, to soon disappear into the sea toward the southwest. Brief as were her visits, they were always welcome and always brought the feeling that distant homes were nearer when the same light was visible to us and to loved ones far away. The soft moonlight dimmed the twilight, the after-glow faded from the highest peaks, and the short northern night came on.

After returning from the mountains, late in September, we were again encamped on the northwestern shore of Yakutat bay. A heavy northeast storm swept down from the mountains and awakened all the pent-up fury of the waves. The beach was crowded with bergs, among which the surf broke in great sheets of feathery foam; clouds of spray were dashed far above the icy ramparts, carrying with them fragments of ice torn from the bergs over which they swept; while the stranded bergs rocked violently to and fro as the waves burst over them. Sometimes the raging waters, angered by opposition, lifted the bergs in their mighty arms and, turning them over and over, dashed them high on the beach. It seemed as if spirits of the deep, unable to leave the water-world, were hurling their weapons at unseen enemies on the land. The fearful grandeur of the raging waters and of the dark storm-swept skies was, perhaps, enhanced by the fact that the landward-blowing gale, combined with a rising tide, threatened to sweep away our frail home. Each succeeding wave, as it rolled shoreward, sent a sheet of foam roaring and rushing up the beach and creeping nearer and nearer to our shelter until only a few inches intervened between the highwater line and the crest of the sand bank that protected us. The limit was reached at last, however, and the water slowly retreated, leaving a fringe of ice within arm's length of our tents.

The wild scene along the shore was especially grand at night. The stranded bergs, seen through the gloom, formed strange moving shapes, like vessels in distress. The white banners of spray seemed signals of disaster. An Armada, more numerous than ever sailed from the ports of Spain, was being crushed and ground to pieces by the hoarse wind and raging surf. Sleep was impossible, even if one cared to rest when sea and air and sky were joined in fierce conflict. Our tents, spared by the waves, were dashed down by the fierce north winds, and a lake in the forest toward the west overflowed its banks and discharged its flooding waters through our encampment. At last, tired and discomforted, we abandoned our tents and retreated to the neighboring forest and there took refuge in a cabin built near where a coal seam outcrops, and remained until the storm had spent its force. But I have anticipated, and must return to the thread of my narrative.

FIRST DAY'S TRAMP.

The impressions received during the first day spent on shore in a new country are always long remembered. Of several "first days" in my own calendar, there are none that exceed in interest my first excursions through the forest and over the hills west of Yakutat bay.

Every one about camp having plenty of work to occupy him through the day, I started out early on the morning of July 2, with only "Bud" and "Tweed" for companions. My objects were to reconnoiter the country to the westward, to learn what I could concerning its geology and glaciers, and to choose a line of march toward Mount St. Elias.

To the north of our camp, and about a mile distant, rose a densely wooded hill about 300 feet high, with a curving outline, convex southward. This hill had excited my curiosity on first catching sight of the shore, and I decided to make it my first study. Its position at the mouth of a steep gorge in the hills beyond, down which a small glacier flowed, suggested that it might be an ancient moraine, deposited at a time when the ice-stream advanced farther than at present. My surprise therefore was great when, after forcing my way through the dense thickets, I reached the top of the hill, and found a large kettle-shaped depression, the sides of which were solid walls of ice fifty feet high. This showed at once that the supposed hill was really the extremity of a glacier, long dead and deeply buried beneath forest-covered débris. In the bottom of the kettle-like depression lay a pond of muddy water, and, as the ice-cliffs about the lakelet melted in the warm sunlight, miniature avalanches of ice and stones, mingled with sticks and bushes that had been undermined, frequently rattled down its sides and splashed into the waters below. Further examination revealed the fact that scores of such kettles are scattered over the surface of the buried glacier. This ice-stream is that designated the Galiano glacier on the accompanying map.

Continuing on my way toward the mouth of the gorge in the mountains above, I forced my way for nearly a mile through dense thickets, frequently making wide detours to avoid the kettle holes. At length the vegetation became less dense, and gave place to broad open fields of rocks and dirt, covering the glacier from side to side. This débris was clearly of the nature of a moraine, as the ice could be seen beneath it in numerous crevasses; but no division into marginal or medial moraines could be distinguished. It is really a thin, irregular sheet of comminuted rock, together with angular masses of sandstone and shale, the largest of which are ten or fifteen feet in diameter. When seen from a little distance the débris completely conceals the ice and forms a barren, rugged surface, the picture of desolation.

After traversing this naked area the clear ice in the center of the gorge was reached. All about were wild cliffs, stretching up toward the snow-covered peaks above; several cataracts of ice, formed by tributary glaciers descending through rugged, highly inclined channels, were in sight; while the snow-fields far above gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight, and now and then sent down small avalanches to awaken the echoes of the cliffs and fill the still air with a Babel of tongues.

Pushing on toward the western border of the glacier, across the barren field of stones, I came at length to the brink of a precipice of dirty ice more than a hundred feet high, at the foot of which flowed a swift stream of turbid water. A few hundred yards below, this stream suddenly disappeared beneath an archway formed by the end of a glacial tunnel, and its further course was lost to view. It was a strange sight to see a swift, foaming river burst from beneath overhanging ice-cliffs, roar along over a bowlder-covered bed, and then plunge into the mouth of a cavern, leaving no trace of its lower course except a dull, heavy rumbling far down below the icy surface. A still grander example of these glacial streams, observed a few days later, is described on another page.

The bank of the gulf opposite the point at which I first reached it is formed by a steep mountain-side supporting a dense growth of vegetation. Here and there, however, streams of water plunge down the slope, making a chain of foaming cascades, and opening the way through the vegetation. It seemed practicable to traverse one of these stream beds without great difficulty, and thus to reach the plateau which I knew, from a more distant view, to exist above.

Crossing the glacial river above the upper archway, I reached the mountain side and began to ascend. The task was far more difficult than anticipated. The bushes, principally of alder and currant, grew dense and extended their branches down the steep slope in such a manner that at times it was utterly impossible to force a way through them. Much of the way I crawled on hands and knees up the steep watercourse beneath the dense tangle of vegetation overhanging from either bank and interlacing in the center. On nearing the top I was so fortunate as to strike a bear trail, along which the animal had forced his way through the bushes, making an opening like a tunnel. Through this I ascended to the top of the slope, coming out in a wild amphitheatre in the side of the mountain. The bottom of the amphitheatre was exceedingly rough, owing to confused moraine-heaps, and held a number of small lakes. On account of its elevation, it was not densely covered with bushes, and no trees were in sight except along its southern margin. About its northern border ran a broad terrace, marking the height of the great glacier which formerly occupied the site of Yakutat bay. The terrace formed a convenient pathway leading westward to a sharp ridge running out from the mountains and connecting with an outstanding butte, which promised to afford an unobstructed view to the westward.

Pressing on, I found that the terrace on which I was traveling at length became a free ridge, some three hundred feet high, with steep slopes on either side, like a huge railroad embankment. This ridge swept across the valley in a graceful curve, and shut off a portion of the western part of the amphitheatre from the general drainage. In the portion thus isolated there was a lake without an outlet, still frozen. The snow banks bordering the frozen lake were traced in every direction by the trails of bears. Continuing my tramp, I crossed broad snow-fields, climbed the ridge to the westward, and obtained a far-reaching, unobstructed view of the surrounding country. The elevation reached was only about 1,500 feet above sea-level, but was above the timber line. The mountain slopes toward the north were bare of vegetation and generally covered with snow.

The first object to claim attention was the huge pyramid forming the summit of Mount St. Elias, which stood out clear and sharp against the northwestern sky. Although thirty-six miles distant, it dominated all other peaks in view and rose far above the rugged crests of nearer ranges, many of which would have been counted magnificent mountains in a less rugged land. This was the first view of the great peak obtained by any of our party. Not a cloud obscured the defination of the mountain; and the wonderful transparency of the atmosphere, after so many days of mist and rain, was something seldom if ever equalled in less humid lands.

Much nearer than St. Elias, and a little west of north of my station, rose Mount Cook, one of the most beautiful peaks in the region. Its summit, unlike the isolated pyramid in which St. Elias terminates, is formed of three white domes, with here and there subordinate pinnacles of pure white, shooting up from the snow-fields like great crystals. On the southern side of Mount Cook there are several rugged and angular ridges, which sweep away for many miles and project like headlands into the sea of ice, known as the Malaspina glacier, bordering the ocean toward the southwest. Between the main ridges there are huge trunk glaciers, each contributing its flood of ice to the great glacier below; and each secondary valley and each amphitheatre among the peaks, no matter how small, has its individual glacier, and the majority of these are tributary to the larger ice-streams. All the mountains in sight exceeding 2,000 feet in elevation were white with snow, except the sharpest ridges and boldest precipices. The attention of the geologist is attracted by the fact that all the foot-hills of Mount Cook are composed of gray sandstone and black shale; and he also observes that the angular mountain crest so sharply drawn against the sky furnishes abundant evidence that the mountains were never subjected to the abrasion of a continuous ice-sheet.

As I stood on the steep-sloped ridge, the Atrevida and Lucia glaciers, their surfaces covered from side to side with angular masses of sandstone and shale, lay at my feet; while farther up the valley the débris on the surface of the ice disappeared, and all above was a winter landscape. The brown, desolate débris-fields on the glacier at my feet extended far southward, and covered the expanded ice-foot in which the glacier terminates. Most curious of all was the fact that the moraines on the lower border of the glacier were concealed from view by a dense covering of vegetation, and in places were clothed with forests of spruce trees.

To the southward, beyond the end of the Lucia glacier, and separated from it by a torrent-swept bowlder-bed, lay a vast plateau of ice which stretched toward the south and west farther than the eye could reach. This is the Malaspina glacier, shown on plate 8. Its borders, like the expanded extremity of the Lucia glacier, are covered with débris, on the outer margins of which dense vegetation has taken root. All the central portion of the ice-sheet is clear of moraines, and shone in the sunlight like a vast snow-field. The heights formerly reached by the nearer glaciers were plainly marked along the mountain sides by well-defined terraces, sloping with the present drainage. When the Lucia glacier was at its flood the ridge on which I stood was only 200 or 300 feet above its surface; now it approaches 1,000 feet.

Turning toward the southeast, I could look down upon the waters of Yakutat bay, with its thousands of floating icebergs, and could distinguish the white breakers as they rolled in on Ocean cape. Beyond Yakutat stretches a forest-covered plateau between the mountains and the sea, and the eye could range far over the mountains bordering this plateau on the northeast. In the distance, fully a hundred miles away, stood Mount Fairweather, its position rendered conspicuous by a bank of shining clouds floating serenely above its cold summit.

The mountains directly east of Yakutat bay rise to a general height of about 8,000 feet, but are without especially prominent peaks. In a general way they form a rugged plateau, which has been dissected in various channels to depth of 2,000 or 3,000 feet. Nearly all of the plateau, including mountains and valleys, is covered with snow-fields and glaciers; but none of the ice-streams, so far as can be seen from a distance, descend below an elevation of about 4,000 or 5,000 feet. This region is as yet untraversed; and when the explorer enters it, it is quite possible that deep drainage lines will be found through which glaciers may descend nearly or quite to sea-level.

After drinking in the effect of the magnificent landscape and endeavoring to impress every detail in the rugged topography upon my memory, and having finished writing my notes, it was time to return; for the sun was already declining toward the west. Wishing to see more of the wonderful land about me, I concluded to descend the western slope of the ridge upon which I stood, and to return to camp by following a stream which issues from the Atrevida glacier directly below my station and empties into Yakutat bay a mile or two south of our third camp.

The quickest and easiest way down was to slide on the snow. Using my alpenstock as a brake, I descended swiftly several hundred feet without difficulty, the dogs bounding along beside me, when on looking up I was startled to see two huge brown bears on the same snow surface, a little to the left and not more than a hundred and fifty yards away. Had my slide been continued a few seconds more I should have been in exceedingly unwelcome company. I was unarmed, and entirely unprepared for a fight with two of the most savage animals found in this country. The bears had long yellowish-brown hair, and were of the size and character of the "grizzly," with which they are thought by hunters, if not by naturalists, to be specifically identical. They were not at all disturbed by my presence, and in spite of my shouts, which I thought would make them travel off, one of them came leisurely toward me. His strides over the snow revealed a strength and activity commanding admiration despite the decidedly uncomfortable feeling awakened by his proximity and evident curiosity. Later in the season I measured the tracks of an animal of the same species, made while walking over a soft, level surface, and found each impression to measure 9 by 17 inches, and the stride to reach 64 inches. So far as I have been able to learn, this is the largest bear track that has been reported. Realizing my danger, I continued my snow slide, but in a different direction and with accelerated speed. The upper limit of the dense thicket clothing the slope of the mountain was soon reached, and my unwelcome companions were lost to sight.

Following the bed of a torrent fed by the snow-fields above, I soon came to the creek chosen for my route back to camp; the waters, brown and turbid with sediment, welled out of a cavern at the foot of an ice precipice 200 feet high, and formed a roaring stream too deep and too swift for fording. The roaring of the brown waters and the startling noises made by stones rattling down the ice-cliff, together with the dark shadows of the deep gorge, walled in by a steep mountain slope on one side and a glacier on the other, made the route seem uncanny. On the sands filling the spaces between the bowlders there were many fresh bear tracks, which at least suggested that the belated traveler should be careful in his movements.

This locality was afterward occupied as a camping place, and is shown in the picture forming plate 10. The dark-colored ice, mixed with stones and earth, might easily be mistaken for stratified rock; but the dirt discoloring the ice is almost entirely superficial. The crest of the cliff is formed of débris, and is the edge of the sheet of stones and earth covering the general surface of the glacier. Owing to the constant melting, stones and bowlders are continually loosened to rattle down the steep slope and plunge into the water beneath.

I followed down the bank of the stream, by springing from bowlder to bowlder, for about a mile, and then came to a steep bluff, the western side of which was swept by the roaring flood. The banks above were clothed with spruce trees and dense underbrush; but, there being no alternative, I entered the forest and slowly worked my way in the direction of camp. To traverse the unbroken forests of southern Alaska is always difficult, even when one is fresh; and, weary as I was with many hours of laborious climbing, my progress was slow indeed. One of the principal obstacles encountered in threading these Arctic jungles is the plant known as the "Devil's club" (Panax horridum), which grows to a height of ten or fifteen feet, and has broad, palmate leaves that are especially conspicuous in autumn, owing to their bright yellow color. The stems of this plant run on the earth for several feet and then curve upward. Every portion of its surface, even to the ribs of the leaves, is thickly set with spines, which inflict painful wounds, and, breaking off in the flesh, cause festering sores. In forcing a way through the brush one frequently treads on the prostrate portion of these thorny plants, and not infrequently is made aware of the fact by a blow on the head or in the face from the over-arching stems.

I struggled on through the tangled vegetation until the sun went down and the woods became dark and somber. Thick moss, into which the foot sank as in a bed of sponge, covered the ground everywhere to the depth of two or three feet; each fallen trunk was a rounded mound of green and brown, decked with graceful equiseta and ferns, or brilliant with flowers, but most treacherous and annoying to the belated traveler. In the gloom of the dim-lit woods, the trees, bearded with moss, assumed strange, fantastic shapes, which every unfamiliar sound seemed to start into life; while the numerous trails made by the bears in forcing their way through the thick tangle were positive evidence that not all the inhabitants of the forest were creatures of the imagination. My faithful companions, "Bud" and "Tweed" showed signs of weariness, and offered no objection when I started a fire and expressed my intention of spending the night beneath the wide-spreading branches of a moss-covered evergreen. Having a few pieces of bread in my pocket, I shared them with the dogs, and stretching myself on a luxuriant bank of lichens tried to sleep, only to find the mosquitoes so energetic that there was no hope of passing the night in comfort.

After resting I felt refreshed, and concluded to press on through the gathering darkness, and after another hour of hard work I came out of the forest and upon a field of torrent-swept bowlders, deposited by the stream which I had left farther up. I was surprised to find that the twilight was not so far spent as I had fancied. The way ahead being free of vegetation, I hastened on, and after traveling about two miles was rejoiced by the sight of a camp-fire blazing in the distance. The warm fire and a hearty supper soon made me forget the fatigues of the day.

This, my first day's exploration, must stand as an example of many similar days spent on the hills and in the forests northwest of Yakutat bay, of which it is not necessary to give detailed descriptions.

CANOE TRIP IN DISENCHANTMENT BAY.

On July 3, I continued my examination of the region about the head of Yakutat bay by making a canoe trip up Disenchantment bay to Haenke island. With the assistance of Christie and Crumback, our canoe was launched through the surf without difficulty, and we slowly worked our way through the fields of floating ice which covered all the upper portion of the inlet. The men plied the oars with which the canoe was fortunately provided, while I directed its course with a paddle. A heavy swell rolling in from the ocean rendered the task of choosing a route through the grinding ice-pack somewhat difficult. After four or five hours of hard work, during which time several vain attempts were made to traverse leads in the ice which had only one opening, we succeeded in reaching the southern end of the island.

The shores of Haenke island are steep and rocky, and, so far as I am aware, afford only one cove in which a boat can take refuge. This is at the extreme southern point, and is not visible until its entrance is reached. A break or fissure in the rocks there admits of the accumulation of stone and sand, and this 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.²⁷ At the rate of retreat indicated by comparing 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.

²⁷ The map accompanying Malaspina's report and indicating these conditions has already been mentioned, and is reproduced on [plate 7], page 67.

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 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 sea. Another glacier, of smaller size but of the same general character, lies between the Hubbard and Dalton glaciers.

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. At its end there is a cliff of black, dirty ice, scarcely to be distinguished from rock at a little distance, from the base of which flows a turbid stream. This glacier is covered so completely with earth and stones that not a vestige of the ice can be seen unless we actually traverse its surface. Its appearance suggests the name of Black glacier, by which it is designated on the accompanying map.

The visitor to Haenke island has examples of at least two well-marked types of glaciers in view: The small débris-covered ice-streams, too small to reach the water, are typical of a large class of glaciers in southern Alaska, which are slowly wasting away and have become buried beneath débris concentrated at the surface by reason of their own melting. The Galiano glacier is a good example of this class. The Hubbard and Dalton glaciers are fine examples of another class of ice-streams which flow into the sea and end in ice-cliffs, and which for convenience we call tide-water glaciers. Nowhere can finer or more beautiful examples of this type be found than those in view from Haenke island.

The formation of icebergs from the undermining and breaking down of the ice-cliffs of the tide-water glaciers has already been mentioned. But there is another method by which bergs are formed—a process even more remarkable than the avalanches that occur when portions of the ice-cliffs topple over into the sea. The ice-cliffs at the foot of the tide-water glaciers are really sea-cliffs formed by the waves cutting back a terrace in the ice. The submerged terrace is composed of ice, and may extend out a thousand feet or more in front of the visible part of the ice-cliffs. These conditions are represented in the accompanying diagram (figure 1), which exhibits a longitudinal section of the lower end of a tide-water glacier where it pushes out into the sea.

FIGURE 1—Diagram illustrating the Formation of Icebergs

As the sea-cliff of ice recedes and the submerged terrace increases in breadth there comes a time when the buoyancy of the ice at the bottom exceeds its strength, and pieces break off and rise to the surface. The water about the ends of the glaciers is so intensely muddy that the submerged ice-foot is hidden from view, and its presence would not be suspected were it not for the fragments occasionally rising from it. The sudden appearance of these masses of bottom ice at the surface is always startling. While watching the ice-cliffs and admiring the play of colors in the deep crevasses which penetrate them in every direction, or tracing in fancy the strange history of the silent river and wondering in what age the snows fell on the mountains, which are now returning to their parent, the sea, one is frequently awakened by a commotion in the waters below, perhaps several hundred feet in front of the ice-cliffs. At first it seems as if some huge sea-monster had risen from the deep and was lashing the waters into foam; but soon the waters part, and a blue island rises to the surface, carrying hundreds of tons of water, which flows down its sides in cataracts of foam. Some of the bergs turn completely over on emerging, and thus add to the tumult and confusion that attends their birth. The waves roll away in widening circles, to break in surf on the adjacent shores, and an island of ice of the most lovely blue floats serenely away to join the thousands of similar islands that have preceded it. The fragments of the glacier rising from the bottom in this manner are usually larger than those broken from the faces of the ice-cliffs, sometimes measuring 200 or 300 feet in diameter. Their size and the suddenness with which they rise would insure certain destruction of a vessel venturing too near the treacherous ice-walls.

At the time of our visit to Haenke island, the entire surface of Disenchantment bay and all of Yakutat bay as far southward as we could see formed one vast field of floating ice. Most of the bergs were small, but here and there rose masses which measured 150 by 200 feet on their sides and stood 40 or 50 feet out of the water. The bergs are divided, in reference to color, into three classes—the white, the blue, and the black. The white ones are those that have fallen from the face of the ice-walls or those that have been sufficiently exposed to the atmosphere to become melted at the surface and filled with air cavities. The blue bergs are of many shades and tints, finding their nearest match in color in Antwerp blue. These are the ones that have recently risen from the submerged ice-foot, or have turned over owing to a change of position in the center of gravity. Rapid as is the melting of the ice when exposed to the air, it seems to liquefy even more quickly when submerged. The changes thus produced finally cause the bergs to reverse their positions in the water. This is done without the slightest warning, and is one of the greatest dangers to be guarded against while canoeing among them. The white color presented by the majority of the bergs is changed to blue when they become stranded, and the surf breaks over them and dissolves away their porous surfaces. A few of the bergs are black in color, owing to the dirt and stones that they carry on their surfaces or frozen in their mass. Quantities of débris are thus floated away from the tide-water glaciers and strewn over the bottoms of the adjacent inlets.

This digression may be wearisome, but one cannot stand on Haenke island without wishing to know all the secrets of the great ice-streams that flow silently before him.

Returning from our commanding station at the summit of the island to where we left our canoe, we were surprised and not a little startled to find that the tide had run out and left the strand between our canoe and the water completely blocked with huge fragments of ice. There was no way left for us to launch our canoe except by cutting away and leveling off the ice with our axe, so as to form a trail over which we could drag it to the water. This we did, and then, poising the canoe on a low flat berg, half of which extended beneath the water, I took my place in it with paddle in hand, while Christie and Crumback, waiting for the moment when a large wave rolled in, launched the canoe far out in the surf. By the vigorous use of my paddle I succeeded in reaching smooth water and brought the canoe close under the cliff forming the southern side of the cove, where the men were able to drop in as a wave rolled under us.

We slowly worked our way down the bay through blue lanes in the ice-pack, against an incoming tide, and reached our tents near sunset. Thus ended one of the most enjoyable and most instructive days at Yakutat bay.

FROM YAKUTAT BAY TO BLOSSOM ISLAND.

Our camp on the shore of Yakutat bay was held for several days after returning from Haenke island, but in the meantime an advance-camp was established on the side of the Lucia glacier, from which Mr. Kerr and myself made explorations ahead.

Before leaving the base-camp I visited Black glacier for the purpose of taking photographs and studying the appearance of an old glacier far spent and fast passing away. This, like the Galiano glacier, is a good example of a great number of ice-streams in the same region which are covered from side to side with débris. The cañon walls on either side rise precipitously, and their lower slopes, for the height of 200 or 300 feet, are bare of vegetation. The surface of the glacier has evidently sunken to this extent within a period too short to allow of the accumulation of soil and the rooting of plants on the slopes. The banks referred to are in part below the upper limit of timber growth, and the adjacent surfaces are covered with bushes, grasses, and flowers. Under the climatic conditions there prevailing, it is evident that the formation of soil and the spreading of plants over areas abandoned by ice is a matter of comparatively few years. It is for this reason that a very recent retreat of Black glacier is inferred. Many of the glaciers in southern Alaska give similar evidence of recent contraction, and it is evident that a climatic change is in progress which is either decreasing the winter's snow or increasing the summer's heat. The most sensitive indicators of these changes, responding even more quickly than does the vegetation, are the glaciers.

The fourth of July was spent by us in cutting a trail up the steep mountain slope to the amphitheatre visited during my first tramp. No one can appreciate the density and luxuriance of the vegetation on the lower mountain in that region until he has cut a passage through it. Seven men, working continuously for six or seven hours with axes and knives, were able to open a comparatively good trail about a mile in length. The remainder of the way was along stream courses and up bowlder-washes, which were free from vegetation. In the afternoon, having finished our task, a half-holiday was spent in an exciting search for two huge brown bears discovered by one of the party, but they vanished before the guns could be brought out.

The next day an advance-camp was made in the amphitheatre above timber line, and there Mr. Kerr and myself passed the night, molested only by swarms of mosquitoes, and the day following occupied an outstanding butte as a topographical station. In the afternoon of the same day the advance-camp was moved to the border of the Atrevida glacier at a point already described, where a muddy stream gushes out from under the ice.

Our next advance-camp, established a few days later, was at Terrace point, as we called the extreme end of the mountain spur separating the Lucia and Atrevida glaciers. These ice-streams were formerly much higher than now, and when at their flood formed terraces along the mountain side, which remain distinctly visible to the present day. The space between the two glaciers at the southern end of the mountain spur became filled with bowlders and stones carried down on the side of the ice-streams, and, as the glaciers contracted, added a tapering point to the mountain. Between the present surface of the ice and the highest terrace left at some former time there are many ridges, sloping down stream, which record minor changes in the fluctuation of the ice. A portion of one of these terraces is seen to the left in plate 10.

Terrace point, like all the lower portions of the mountain spurs extending southward from the main range, is densely clothed with vegetation, and during the short summers is a paradise of flowers. Our tent was pitched on a low terrace just beyond the border of the ice. The steep bluff rising to an elevation of some 200 feet on the east of our camp was formed by glacial ice buried beneath an absolutely barren covering of stones and dirt. On the west the ascent was still more precipitous, but the slope from base to summit was one mass of gorgeous flowers.

Kerr and myself made several excursions from the camp at Terrace point, and explored the country ahead to the next mountain spur for the purpose of selecting a site for another advance-camp. In the meantime the men were busy in bringing up supplies.

Our reconnoissance westward took us across the Lucia glacier to the mouth of a deep, transverse gorge in the next mountain spur. The congeries of low peaks and knobs south of this pass we named the Floral hills, on account of the luxuriance of the vegetation covering them; and the saddle separating them from the mountains to the north was called Floral pass.

In crossing the Lucia glacier we experienced the usual difficulties met with on the débris-covered ice-field of Alaska. The way was exceedingly rough, on account of the ridges and valleys on the ice, and on account of the angular condition of the débris resting upon it. Many of the ridges could not conveniently be climbed, owing to the uncertain footing afforded by the angular stones resting on the slippery slope beneath. Fortunately, the crevasses were mostly filled with stones fallen from the sides, so that the danger from open fissures, which has usually to be guarded against in glacial excursions, was obviated; yet, as is usually the case when crevasses become filled with débris, the melting of the adjacent surfaces had caused them to stand in relief and form ridges of loose stones, which were exceedingly troublesome to the traveler.

An Expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska

THE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.