June-October 1881, Cruise of the Corwin, Part II Image 64

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1881
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Tundra
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2066; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3065/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

ship at 3 in the afternoon. The sea rough. The principal fact I discovered is a heavy deposit of glacial drift about 50 ft. high, facing several miles of coast. It is coarsely stratified and water-worn, the material of a terminal moraine, leveled by water flowing from a broad glacier, while separated from the sea by a low draggled flat, and then eaten into bluffs by the sea waves. It is now overgrown with alders, willows, and a good crop of sedges and grasses, bright with flowers. Found the small blue violet rather common. White spiraea, in flower, is abundant in damp places about alder groves where the tundra mosses are not too thick. The cranberries, huckleberries, and rubus brambles will soon be ripe. The purple flowered rubus is only in bloom now. The driftwood proves to be spruce and cottonwood. The rock, mica slate, and a good deal of quartz, seem favorable for gold. The life-boat rigged with sails has been sent to board the prospectors’ schooner anchored further up the bay. Seven men are aboard, and 7 are off prospecting. There are reported to have found promising https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3065/thumbnail.jpg