Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-11-03
AN ALASKA GORGE,
arand Array of Stupendous Rocks and Cascades
$50 ssE ~. ---CIiff Gardens -

L
must be a fine place for woodchucks.
When [ asked them, further ON, how
this gorge was made, they gave up the
question, but offered an opinion as to
the formation of rain and soil. The rain,
they said, was produced by the rapid
whiting Of the earth by4a stout, myth
cal being called Yek. The IVA
ter OF the ocean was thus thrown
Off, to descend again in showers, just as
it is thrown off "a wet gnndstone They
did not understand, however, how the
| ocean should be salt, while the rain from
1t is fresh. The soil, they said, for the
plants to grow onis formed by the wash
ing of the rain on the. rocks and gradu-
ally accumulating. The grinding action
OF the ice In this connection they had
not recognized ri 4 N f I
Gliding on and Oh, the scenery, SEEM
ed at every turn to become more lavish
| ly fruitful in forms as well as more
sublimei Ii dimensions. Snowy falls
| booming and blooming in splendid
dress, colossal domes and battlements,
/ and sculptured arches of fine neutral
water; green ferny del]s, bits of flower
bloom on Lodges, fringes Of willow and
birch, and glaciers above all. But when
we approached the base of majestic
rock, Like the Yosemite Halfdome, stand
ing at the head of the ford where two
short branches put out, and came in
sight of another grand glacier of the first
order, sending off bergs, our Joy was
complete. l. had most glorious view
of it. Sweeping in grand ease and
majesty from the deep, inaccessible
mountains where the foundations are
laid, swaying around one mighty
bastion after another, until at length
it falls into the ford I'D shat
tered, overleaning fragments, which,
when set free, become bergs, and SO
waste again to water and die in the sea.
When we had Toasted awhile on this un-
hoped-for treasure, [ directed the In
dams to pull to the head of the left fork
of the ford, where we found a large cas-
cade, with a volume of water great
great glaciers. - "a ~ ~
This is in form and origin a typical
Yosemite valley, though as yet its. floor
is covered with ice and water-ice. above
and beneath How noble a mansion in
which to spend a winter and a summer
1t is about ten miles long, and from
three-quarters of a mile to one mile
wide. Tt contains ten large falls and
cascades, the finest one ON the left side
near the head. After coming in an adj
mirable rush over a granite brow
where it is first seen at height
of 900 or 1 900 feet, it leaps a
sheer precipice of about $50 feet, then
divides and reaches the Underwater in
broken rapids over powders. Another
about ], O30 feet high drops at once on
to the margin of the glacier two miles
back from the snout. Several of the
other are upward of 8, 900 feet high, de-.
scending through narrow gorges as
richly feathered with ferns as any chan
mel that water ever flowed in, though
tremendously abrupt and deep. A
grander array of aocks and waterfalls L
have never yet beheld. - q = E
The amount Of timber on the walls is
about the same as that on the Yosemite
walls, but owing to greater moisture
there is more small vegetation
MOSES, grasses, ETC.; though by far the
greater portion of the area of the wall
surface is bare, and shining with the
polish it received when occupied by the
glacier that formed the entire canon. The
deep-green patches seen on the noun
tains back of the walls at tie limit of
vegetation are grass, where the wild
goats, OF chanois rather, roam and feed.
The still 9reener and more Euxuriant
patches farther down In the gullies and
slopes where the declvity is not Excess
sive,- are made up mostly of willows,
birch and huekleberry bushes, with a
varying amount of prickly rises and
rubus and ecl1inobanax The growth,
when approached, especially On the
lower slopes near the level OF the sea at
the jaws of the great side canons, is
found to be the most impenetrasIe and
tedious and t9ilsome combination of
fighting bushes that the weary explorer
ever fell into, ineomparably more punish
ing than the backthorn and maazanita
tang4es of the Sierra.
The cliff gardens Of this hidden Yo-
semitic are exceedingly rich and beautiful.
On almost every rift and bench, how
even small, as we'll as on the wider table
rocks, where a little soil had lodged, we
find companies of fine bright aewers,
always fresh, ana also far more brilliantly
colosed than would be looked fog in so
cool and beclouded region larAspurs,
gersniums, painted-cups, blue-belas, gen.
tians, sedums, saxifraxes, epilobiums,
violets, parnassia, veratrum, orchids,
fritilaria, smi2ax, spiranthes,. asters,
daisies, the yellow pond lily, bryanthus,
cassiope, hnnea and great va
riety of Towering ribes and ru-
bus and heathworts. Many of
the above, though with soft bush
stems and leaves, are yet as brightly
painted as these of the warm inlands of
the south. The heathworts, in particu-
lar, are very abundant and beautiful,
both in flower and fruit, making delicate
green carpets for the rocks, flushed with
pink bells, CT dotted with red and blue
berries. TIE grasses are everywhere
tall, with ribbon leaves we'll tempered
and arched, and with no lack of bristly
spikes, and nodding paaicles. The Al
pine grasses of the Sierra, making close
carpets OF the glacier meadows, have
not yet seen in Alaska