That long stretch of more than four hundred miles of bare Alaskan coast, between Prince William’s Sound and Cape Spencer, which stands at the northern entrance to the Sitkan waters, is one that sustains very little human or animal life, and is so rough and is so bleak, that from September until May it is feared and avoided by the hardiest navigator. The flanks of Mounts Fairweather and Crillon rise boldly from the ocean at their western feet, and this sheerness of elevation undoubtedly gives them that effect of cloud-compelling, which does not lose its awe-inspiring power even when a hundred miles away. To the northward and westward of Fairweather, however, the alpine range which it dominates abruptly sets back from the coast some forty or fifty miles, then turns about and faces the sea in an irregular, lofty half-moon of more than three hundred miles in length. A low table-land, or rolling shelf, is extended at its base, intervening between the mountains and the wash of the Pacific. It is timbered with spruce quite thickly, and reported by the Indians to be the best berrying ground in all Alaska. The Fairweather shore is a steep, woody one, much indented with roadstead coves or bays; the coast line is hilly and uneven, with some rocks and rocky islets scattered along not far out from the surf. The sand-beaches which extend from Fairweather toward the feet of those under St. Elias are remarkably broad and extensive; so much so that, from the ship’s mast-head, large lagoons within the outer swell of the open ocean are frequently seen. These beach-locked estuaries communicate with the ocean by shallow breaks in the outer beach-wall of sand and gravel, across all of which the sea rolls with great violence. [Illustration: MT. SAINT ELIAS: 19,500 FEET Under the shadow of this great mountain. Bering’s crew landed in July, 1741; they were the first white men to behold its sullen grandeur, and it fitly stands as the initial point of that early recognition of Russian America. In clear weather it is distinctly seen by mariners, 150 miles at sea; usually, however, it is wrapped in clouds] Right under the towering slopes of Fairweather, as at St Elias, is a large area of upland entirely destitute of verdure of any kind, except the brown and russet mosses and lichens; huge, rugged masses of naked rocks are strewn about in every direction—an old prehistoric lava-flood, perhaps. The coast, from the head of Cross Sound to Fairweather, is not sandy, but may be well described as the surf-beaten base of a frozen range of magnificent Alpine peaks.