June-October 1881, Cruise of the Corwin, Part II Image 50

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1881
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Swash; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2052; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3051/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

June 28. Anchored an hour or two this forenoon at the west Diomede and landed a party to make observations on the currents and temp. of the water that sets through Behring Straits. Then they proceeded on our way direct to Tapkan to seek our search party. The fine weather that we have enjoyed since the day before our arrival at S. Michael ended in the old, dark, gloomy clouds and drizzling fog on reaching the Diomedes, though the coast above Cape East has been in sight most of the time up to a height of about 1000 ft. or so until now, 10 P.M. 35 miles N.W. of the Cape. The glaciation after the melting of the ice-sheet has been light, sculpturing the mountains into shallow and shore valleys and round ridges, broad-backed mostly – the valleys for the most part not cut down to the sea. The shore seems to have been cut off by the glacier sheet that occupied the sea after it was too shallow to flow over the angle of land formed by Cape E. This overflow is well marked, 15 to 25 miles N.W. of the Cape, in the trends of the ridges and valleys as far back as I could see, is about 25 miles from the shore. The N. wind is blowing and has been for 24 hrs., and we fear that we will soon meet with the drifting ice from the main polar pack. June 29. Cloudy, with flurries of snow nearly all day. Arrived at Tapkan about 8 in the evening. About 3 miles of drift ice is jammed against the shore, and a heavy swell from the north is beating against it, and making the huge ice masses swash and wallow and grind https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3051/thumbnail.jpg