141st meridian, provided that when such line runs more than
ten marine leagues from the ocean the limit ``shall
be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the
coast and which shall never exceed the distance of ten
marine leagues therefrom.'' The international disputes
connected with this description are referred to below.
Physical Features.---Alaska is bounded on the N. by the
Arctic Ocean, on the W. by the Arctic Ocean and Bering
Strait, on the S. and S.W. by the Gulf of Alaska and the
Pacific Ocean, and on the E. by Yukon Territory and British
Columbia. It consists of a compact central mass and two
straggling appendages running from its S.W. and S.E. corners,
and sweeping in a vast arc over 16 degrees of latitude and
58 degrees of longitude. These three parts will be referred
to hereafter respectively, as Continental Alaska, Aleutian
Alaska and the ``Panhandle.'' The range of latitude from
Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean to Cape Muzon is almost 17
degrees---as great as from New Orleans to Duluth; the range
of longitude from Attu Island to the head of Portland Canal
is 58 degrees---considerably greater than from New York to San
Francisco. The total area is about 586,400 sq. m. The
general ocean-coast line is about 4750 m., and, including the
islands, bays, inlets and rivers to the head of tide water,
is about 26,000 m. in length (U.S. Coast Survey 1889). The
entire southern coast is very irregular in outline; it is
precipitous, with only very slight stretches of beach or
plain. Its elevation gradually decreases as one travels W.
toward the Aleutians. A great submarine platform extends
throughout a large part of Bering Sea. The western and northern
coasts are regular in outline with long straight beaches; and
shallows are common in the seas that wash them. On the Arctic
there is a broad coastal plain. Of the islands of Alaska
the more important are: at the S.E. extremity and lying close
inland, the Alexander Archipelago, whose principal islands
from N.W. to S.E. are Chicagof, Baranof, Admiralty, Kupreanof,
Kuiu. Prince of Wales (the largest of the archipelago and
of all the islands about Alaska, measuring about 140 m.
in length and 40m.inwidth), Etolin and Revillagigedo; S.W.
of the mainland, two groups--.-(1) Kodiak, whose largest
island, of the same name, is 40 m. by 100 m., and may be
considered a continuation of the Kenai Peninsula, and whose
W. continuation, S. of Alaska Peninsula, consists of the
Semidi, Shumagin and Sannak clusters; (2) the Aleutian Islands
(q.v.) sweeping 1200 m. W.S.W. from the end of Alaska
Peninsula, W. of the mainland, in Bering Sea, the Pribilof
Islands, about 500 m. S. of Cape Prince of Wales, the small
Hall and St Matthew Islands, about 170 m. S.W. of the same
cape, St Lawrence Island (100 m. and 10 to 30 m. wide),
which is about half way between the last mentioned pair of
islets and Cape Prince of Wales and Nunivak Island, near the
mainland and due E. of St Matthew; and in the middle of Bering
Strait the Diomede Islands, which belong in part to Russia.
Very little was known about Alaska previous to 1896, when the
gold discoveries in the Klondike stimulated public interest
regarding it. Since 1895, however, the explorations of the
United States Geological Survey and the Department of War, and
other departments of the government, have fully established the
main features of its physiography. It has mountains, plateaus
and lowlands on a grand scale. ``In a broad way, the larger
features of topography correspond with those of the western
states. There is a Pacific Mountain system, a Central
Plateau region, a Rocky Mountain system, and a Great Plains
region. These four divisions are well marked, and show the
close geographic relation of this area to the southern part
of the Continent.'' The orographic features of the Pacific
Mountain system trend parallel to the coast-line of the Gulf of
Alaska, changing with this at the great bend beyond the N.,
and of the Panhandle from S.E. and N.W. to N.E. and S.W. and
running through the Alaska Peninsula. The Pacific Mountain
system includes four ranges. The Coast Range of the Panhandle
attains a width of 100 m., but has no well-defined crest
line. The range is characterized by the uniformity of
summit levels between 5O00 and 6000 ft. Continuing the Coast
Range, with which it is closely associated---the Chilkat
river lies between them---is the St Elias Range (a term
now used to include not only the mountains between Cross
Sound and Mt. St Elias, but the Chugach, Kenai, Skolai and
Nutzotin mountains); among its peaks are: Mt. Crillon ( 15,900
ft.), Mt. Fairweather ( 15,290 ft.), Mt. Vancouver (15,666
ft.), Mt. Wrangell (17,500 ft., an active volcano) in the
Nutzotin Mountains, Mt. St Elias (18,024 ft.) and, in Canadian
territory, Mt. Logan (19,539 ft.). The Aleutian Range, of
whose crest the Aleutian Islands are remnants, fills out the
system near the coast. The Alaskan Range, connecting with
the Nutzotin and Skolai branches of the St Elias Range, lies
a little farther inland; it is splendidly marked by many snowy
peaks, including Mt. Foraker (17,000 ft.) and Mt. Mckinley.
The latter, which on the W. rises abruptly out of a marshy
country, offers the obstacles of magnificent, inaccessible
granite cliffs and large glaciers to the mountaineer; it is
the loftiest peak in North America (ca. 20,300 ft.). In the
Alaskan Range and the Aleutian Range there are more than a
dozen live volcanoes, several of them remarkable; the latter
range is composed largely of volcanic material. Evidences
of very recent volcanic activity are abundant about Cook
Inlet. The Rocky Mountain system extends from Canada (the
Tukon territory) into N.E. Alaska, which it crosses near
the Arctic Coast in a broad belt composed of several ranges
about 6000 ft. in altitude. There is no well-defined crest
line; the axis of the system is roughly parallel to the
Pacific Mountain system, but runs more nearly E. and W. in
Alaska. Between the Pacific Mountain and the Rocky Mountain
systems lies the vast Central Plateau region, or Yukon
plateau. Finally, between the Rocky Mountains and the
Arctic Ocean is the Arctic Slope region, a sloping plain
corresponding to the interior plains of the United States.
First Physiographic Region.---The Panhandle is remarkably
picturesque. The maze of islands, hundreds in number, of
the Alexander Archipelago (area about 13,000 sq. m.) are
remnants of a submerged mountain system; the islands rise
3000 to 5000 ft. above the sea, with luxuriantly wooded
tops and bald, sheer sides scarred with marks of glacial
action; the beachless coast is only a narrow ledge between
the mountains and the sea, and unlike the coast of Norway,
to which in outline it is not dissimilar, is bold, steep and
craggy. Through the inner channels, sheltered from the
Pacific by the island rampart, runs the ``inland passage,''
the tourist route northward from Seattle, Washington.
The inter-insular straits are carried up into the shore as
fjords heading in rivers and glaciers. Thus the Stikine
river continues Sumner Strait and the Taku continues Cross
Sound. The Stikine, Taku and Alsek rivers all cross the
mountains in deep-cut canyons. Everywhere the evidences
of glacial action abound. Most remarkable are the inlets
known as Portland Canal and Lynn Canal (continuing Chatham
Strait). The first is very deep, with precipitous shores
and bordering mountains 5000 to 6000 ft. high; the second
is a noble fjord 100 m. long and on an average 6 m. wide,
with magnificent Alpine scenery. It is subject in winter
to storms of extraordinary violence, but is never closed by
ice. Both Portland Canal and Lynn Canal are of historical
importance, as the question of the true location of the
first and the commercial importance to Canada or to the
United States of the possession of the second, were the
crucial contentions in the disputes over the Alaska-Canadian
boundary. At the head of Lynn Canal, the only place on the
whole extent of the south-eastern Alaskan coast where a clear-cut
waterparting is exhibited between the sea-board and interior
drainage, the summits of the highest peaks in the Coast Range
are 8000 to 9000 ft. above the sea. White Pass (2888 ft.) and
Chilkoot Pass (3500 ft.), at the head of the Lynn Canal, are
the gateway to the mining country of the Klondike and Upper
Y(ukon. They are the highest points that one meets in travelling
from Skagway along the course of the Yukon to`Bering Sea.
Prior to the opening (in August 1900) of the railway between
Skagway and White Horse, Canada (110 m.), by way of the White
Pass, all transportation to the interior was effected by men
and pack-animals (and for a time by a system of telpherage)
over these passe 1/3 and the Chilkat or Dalton trail; the
building of the railway reduced carriage rates to less than
a tenth of their former value, and the Chilkat and Chilkoot
Passes were no longer used. The coast region above the
Panhandle shows on a smaller and diminishing scale the same
characteristic features, gradually running into those of the
Aleutians. Out of the Alaska and Nutzotin mountains two great
rivers flow southward: the Copper, practically unnavigable
except for small boats, because of its turbulence and the
discharge of glaciers into its waters; and the Susitna, also
practically unnavigable. Both of these rivers have their
sources in lofty mountain masses, and are swift and powerful
streams carrying with them much silt; their passes over the
water-parting N. of the Kenai Peninsula are through gorges from
4000 to 10,000 ft. in depth. The Copper, the Susitna and its
tributary, the Yentna, as well as the Skwentna, a tributary
of the Yentna from the west, all run through picturesque
canyons, and their upper courses are characterized by glacial
and torrential feeders. Their valleys are well timbered.
The glaciers of the Panhandle and throughout the rest of
the Pacific region are most remarkable---extraordinary alike
for their number and their size. They lie mainly between
56 deg. and 61 deg. N. lat., in a belt 1000 m. long, of which the
central part, some 350 or 500 m. long and 80 m. to 100 m.
wide, has been described as one great confluent neve
field. Thousands of Alpine glaciers from one to fifteen miles
long fill the upper valleys and canyons of the mountains.
More than a hundred almost reach the sea, from which they are
separated by detrital lowland or terminal moraines. Other
glaciers are of the Piedmont type. Greatest of these and of
Alaskan glaciers is the Malaspina, a vast elevated plateau of
wasting ice, 1500 sq. m. in area (nearly a tenth the area of
all Switzerland), touching the sea at only one point, though
fronting it for 50 m. behind a fringing foreland of glacial
debris. It is fed by Alpine glaciers, among them one of
the grandest in Alaska, the Seward, which descends from Mt.
Logan. It is more than 50 m. long, and more than 3 m. broad at
its narrowest point, and several times in its course flows over
cascades, falling hundreds of feet. Of tide-water glaciers
the most remarkable is probably the Muir. It has an area
of 350 sq. m.; the main trunk, which is 30 to 40 m. broad,
is fed by 26 tributaries, 20 of which are each greater than
the Mer de Glace, and pushes its bergs into the sea from ice
cliffs almost 2 m. wide, standing IOO to 200 ft. above the
water, and extending probably 700 to 1000 ft. beneath its
surface. It has been calculated that the average daily
discharge of the Muir in summer is 30,000,000 cubic ft. Its
