the massive heaving swells coming in past Cape Spenser. For miles the
sound is bounded by precipitous mural cliffs, which, lashed with
wave-spray and their heads hidden in clouds, looked terribly threatening
and stern. Had our canoe been crushed or upset we could have made no
landing here, for the cliffs, as high as those of Yosemite, sink sheer
into deep water. Eagerly we scanned the wall on the north side for the
first sign of an opening fiord or harbor, all of us anxious except
Stickeen, who dozed in peace or gazed dreamily at the tremendous
precipices when he heard us talking about them. At length we made the
joyful discovery of the mouth of the inlet now called "Taylor Bay," and
about five o'clock reached the head of it and encamped in a spruce grove
near the front of a large glacier.

While camp was being made, Joe the hunter climbed the mountain wall on
the east side of the fiord in pursuit of wild goats, while Mr. Young and
I went to the glacier. We found that it is separated from the waters of
the inlet by a tide-washed moraine, and extends, an abrupt barrier, all
the way across from wall to wall of the inlet, a distance of about three
miles. But our most interesting discovery was that it had recently
advanced, though again slightly receding. A portion of the terminal
moraine had been plowed up and shoved forward, uprooting and
overwhelming the woods on the east side. Many of the trees were down and
buried, or nearly so, others were leaning away from the ice-cliffs,
ready to fall, and some stood erect, with the bottom of the ice plow
still beneath their roots and its lofty crystal spires towering high
above their tops. The spectacle presented by these century-old trees
standing close beside a spiry wall of ice, with their branches almost
touching it, was most novel and striking. And when I climbed around the
front, and a little way up the west side of the glacier, I found that it
had swelled and increased in height and width in accordance with its