acter of the mountain. The first phenomena may rest entirely upon an optic delusion, as it is not at all certain that the black streaks consist of lava or ashes, while the appearance of vegetation on the surface of glaciers on Copper River is very probably due to the fall of volcanic ashes; the latter phenomenon may be traced as easily and with far more probability to the Wrangell volcano. One of the most impressive physical features of the whole Territory is the stupendous glacier at Muir Inlet. This ice-field, says a recent writer, enters the sea with a front two or three hundred feet above the water and a mile wide. Fancy a wall of blue ice, splintered into columns, spires and huge crystal masses, with grottoes, crevices and recesses higher than Bunker Hill Monument and a mile in width! It is a spectacle that is strangely beautiful in its variety of form and depth of color, and at the same time awful in its grandeur. And not alone is the sight awe-inspiring. The icemountain is almost constantly breaking to pieces with sounds that resemble the discharge of heavy guns or the reverberations of thunder. At times an almost deafening report is heard, or a succession of them, like the belching of a whole park of artillery, when no outward effect is seen. It is the breaking apart of great masses of ice within the glacier. Then some huge berg topples over with a roar and gigantic splash that may be heard several miles, the waters being thrown aloft like smoke. A great pinnacle of ice is seen bobbing about in wicked fashion, perchance turning a somersault in the flood before it settles down to battle for life with the sun and the elements on its seaward cruise. The waves created by all this terrible commotion even rock the steamer and wash the shores miles away. There is scarcely five minutes in the whole day or night without some exhibition of this kind. There are mountains each side of the glacier, the one upon the right, or south shore, being the highest. High up on the bare walls are seen the scoriated and polished surfaces produced by glacial action. The present glacier is retrograding quite rapidly, as may be seen by many evidences of its former extent, as well as by the concurrent testimony of earlier visitors. On either side is a moraine half a mile in width, furrowed and slashed by old glacial streams which have given place in turn to others higher up the defile as the glacier recedes. These moraines are composed of earth and coarse gravel, with occasional large boulders. On the north side the material is more of a clayey sort, at least in part, and the stumps of an ancient forest have been uncovered by the action of a glacial river, or overwhelmed by the icy flood. Some scientists claim these forests are in reality pre-glacial, and many thousands of years old. The interior of the great moraines is yet frozen, and at the head of one of the little ravines formed by former glacial river discharges, a little stream still trickles forth from a diminutive ice cavern. Notwithstanding the contiguity of the ice itself, and the generally frigid surroundings, blue-bells and other flowers bloom on the moraine. In the centre of the glacier, some two miles from its snout, is a rocky island, the top of some ancient peak the great mill of ice has not yet ground down. It is interesting to see how the massive stream of ice conforms itself to its shores, separating above the obstacle and reuniting below. On approaching or departing from Muir Inlet, the voyager may look back upon this literal sea of ice and follow its streams up to the snowfields of the White Mountains, which form the backbone of the peninsula between Glacier Bay and Lynn Canal. The following facts relating to the Muir glacier, its measurement and movement, are derived wholly from Professor Wright's notes. Roughly speaking, the Muir glacier may be said to occupy an amphitheatre which has the dimensions of about twenty-five miles from north to south, and thirty miles from east to west. The opening of this amphitheatre at Muir Inlet is toward the south southeast. It is two miles across from the shoulder of one mountain to the other at the outlet. Into the amphitheatre pour nine glaciers, and the sub-branches that are visible make the affluents more than twenty in number. Four of the main branches come in from the east, but these have already spent their force on reaching the focus of the amphitheatre. The first tributary from the southwest also practically loses its force before reaching the main current. The main flow is from two branches coming from the northwest and two from the north. The motion is here much more rapid. Observations made upon three portions of the main glacier, respectively 300, 1,000 and 1,500 yards from the front, showed the movement to be 135 feet at the first point, 65 at the second and 75 at the third, per day. The summit of the lower point was a little over 300 feet above the water, the second 400 feet and the third considerably more, probably 500 feet. The motion rapidly decreased on approaching the medial moraines brought down by the branches from the east. Along a line moving parallel with that of the greatest motion, and half a dozen miles east from it, the rate observed at two points was about 10 feet per day. Thus we get an average daily motion in the main channel of the ice flow, near its mouth, of about 40 feet across a section of one mile. The height of the ice above the water in front, at the extreme point, was found to be 226 feet. Back a few hundred feet the height is a little over 300 feet, and at a quarter of a mile 400 feet. A quarter of a mile out in front of the glacier the water is 85 fathoms, or 510 feet deep. Thus Professor Wright estimates that a body of ice 735 feet deep, 5,000 feet wide and 1,200 feet long passed out into the bay in the thirty days he was there, this movement and discharge taking place at the rate of 149,000,000 cubic feet per day. He says that after the fall of a large mass of ice from the glacier into the bay, the beach near his camp two and one-half miles distant from the glaciers, would be wrapped in foam by the waves. One of many large masses he saw floating about projected some 60 feet out of water, and was some 400 feet square. Estimating the general height of the berg above the water to be 30 feet, and its total depth 250 feet, the contents of the mass would be 40,000,000 cubic feet. APPENDIX NO. 1. 66 PROFESSOR SERENO WATSON'S NOTE ON THE FLORA OF THE UPPER YUKON." (From the Science, of Cambridge, Mass., February 29, 1884.) Lieut. Schwatka was able to make a small botanical collection from about the head waters of the Yukon, which is of considerable interest as an indication of the climate of the region, and as showing the range northward into the Yukon valley, of some species previously known scarcely beyond the British boundary. Lieut. Schwatka, ascending from the head of Chilkoot Inlet, crossed the main coast-range by the Perrier Pass, at an altitude of 4,100 feet, coming at once upon the source of the Yukon River, in latitude 59° 40'. A descent of twelve miles brought him to Lake Lindeman; and upon the borders of this and other lakes within a distance of twenty-five miles, nearly equally on both sides of the sixtieth parallel, the larger part of the collection was made, between the 12th and 15th of June. The specimens gathered at even this date were in full bloom, excepting a few indicated in the following list by parentheses, and the sedges and grasses, which were well developed. Anemone parviflora, Aquilegia formosa, Aconitum Napellus, var., Barbarea vulgaris, Arabis petraea, Cardamine hirsuta, var., Lupinus Arcticus, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, (Moneses uniflora), Pyrola secunda, Dodecatheon Meadia, var., 405 |