With this survey of the Alexander archipelago fixed on our minds, we pass from it through the bold Cross Sound headlands that loom above those storm-churned swells of an open ocean, which break here in unceasing turmoil, and we sail out into an area that charts tell us is the “Fairweather ground,” over which that superb peak itself and sister, Crillon, stand like vast sentinel-towers, rearing their immense bulk into many successive strata of clouds, until the elevation of thirteen thousand and fourteen thousand feet is reached, sheer and bold above the sea. This great expanse of the Pacific Ocean between us and Kadiak Island, five hundred and sixty miles to the west, and again down to Victoria, nine hundred miles farther to the south, was the rendezvous of the most successful and numerous whaling fleet that the history of the business records. In these waters the large “right” whale did most congregate, and the capture of it between 1846 and 1851 drew not less than three and four hundred ships with their hardy crews to this area backed by the Alaskan coast. They never landed, however, unless shipwrecked, which was a rare occurrence, but cruised “off and on” with the majestic head of Mount Fairweather as their point of arrival and departure. When the whalemen saw the summit of that snow-clad peak unveiled by clouds they were sure of fair weather for several consecutive days afterward, hence the name. Early one June morning Captain Baker, of the _Reliance_, called the author up to see a mountain which was sharply defined in the warm, hazy glow of the dawning sunrise on the horizon—there, bearing N.N.E.,[34] was the image of Mount Fairweather, just as clear cut as a cameo, and lofty as the ship’s spars, though one hundred and thirty-five miles distant! Closely associated and fully as impressive and quite as high, was the heavier form of the snowy Crillon.