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00859 1 Sitka July 15th 1879 Dear Friends three The glacial, botanical, general landscape developments are on the grandest
most telling scale imaginable not only here but all the way up from Puget Sound. With the exception of a few hours sail in
two or three places open to the ocean on one side the whole voyage has been in a narrow river-like channel mostly between
bold impressive mountains very densely tree clad down to the waters edge cascades pouring down on either side from the snowy
summits. It was hard to believe that we were sailing on salt water so perfectly river-like are the narrow winding channels.
The average elevation of the snow I estimated at about 2,000 feet above the sea. Small local glaciers were seen nestling back
in shadowing amp illegible here here where the peaks rose higher in Avalanche producing clusters If you turn to the charts
I sent you you may form some conception of the narrowness extreme picturesqueness of the strange waterway eroded by the northern
ice through these mtn ranges Straits, channels reaches narrow islands capes pro illegible inlets fords innumerable in most
surpassing variety, compositions of striking impressiveness Our way layup the Strait of Georgia,