Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/131

1837.] of eternal snow," yet his edges, to the very summit, present a few black wrinkles, and the depth of snow does not, even in the drifts, appear to be very deep.

My anxiety to reach Point Riou and obtain observations on it, induced me to hold on by the land. Indeed there was no other chance of overcoming the current. The coast presents so little to recognise in Vancouver's chart, that I despair of doing more than fixing the position of Mount St. Elias, which, if Kellett has been successful in seeing from Port Mulgrave, will be now secure.

Towards noon the breeze favoured us sufficiently to reach into Icy Bay, very aptly so named, as Vancouver's Point Riou must have dissolved, as well as the small island also mentioned, and on which I had long set my heart as one of my principal positions. At noon we tacked in ten fathoms, mud, having passed through a quantity of small ice, all of a soft nature. The whole of this bay, and the valley above it, was now found to be composed of (apparently) snow ice, about thirty feet in height at the water cliff, and probably based on a low muddy beach; the water for some distance in contact not even showing a ripple; which, it occurred to me, arose from being charged with floating vegetable matter, probably fine bark, &c.

The small bergs or reft masses of ice, forming the cliffy outlines of the bay, were veined and variegated by mud streaks like marble, and where they