Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1884-09-04
A SUMNER TRIP TO ALASKA.
The Great Mountain Peaks Thai
stand out Glourios,y in the CRYSTAL
August Air.
James A. Harrison in Lippincotts.

and found ourselves tracing the out.
side route to the Muir glacier in spark
| ling sunshine. The transition was
delightful, and though most of the
passengers were sick from the TOSSING
of the snip on the long, outside ocean
swell, | believe they all enjoyed the
sunshine as it flashed into their cabin
windows, played on the
walls and pricked and
scattered the enormous vapor.
masses that hung over the mountains
on our right. There were no longer
the vaulted vapors of the preceding
days, the dense Counterpart of nebul.
Gus gray that covered the whole skv
with its monotony. The heavy cloud
banks chung to the mountains. leav-
ing an exquisite arc of sky, almost
Italian in its sunny azure.
! Nothing could be more superb than
the deep, dark, velvcty tints of the
crinkled and crumpled mountains as
they shelved to the sea and came in
contact there with an odging of foam
from the blue Pacific. Huge jelly
| fish tapped about in the clear water.
nebular patches of protoplasmjc ex-
istence, capable apparently of no other
| functions than sensation, motion and
self propagation. Some of them were
richly streaked, long tailed, delicately-
margined with comet-like streamers.
Jelly frills and nuclei like wide open
sunaower. Their motion was so in
dolently graceful that / could not
help gazing at them.
Mount st. Elias Yes, there it was,
they affirmed, on the northeastern
horizon, a vapory, unsubstantial
cone, dancing up and down IN the re
! fracting light. l looked and looked,
persuading myself that | saw the
glorious vision 10, 500 feet high.
| Others persuaded themselves of the
same fact, being naturally ambitious
of carving away remembrances of
| the tallest mountain in all America.
But, after all, | fancy that nobody
had very strong faith in his discov-
cry, particularly as the reputed noun
tain seemed to change its place. fit
hither and thither on the curve of the
sky, and finally disappear.
But yonder! What is thatl Clouds
Apparently. But look again, What
that small speck just on the edge of
the water2 No, higher up-up-up.
What sight! Certainly the grandest
view we have had yet. A huge,
white, snow-tipped back, like a
camel's hump, now loomed apparent
" out of the waters edge-the mighty
range of Mount Fairweather, Mount
Crillon, and eight or ten other domes
and peaks, the highest 10, 500 feet
high, according to the measurement
of the United States Coast survey.
This is the finest mountain landscape
we have ever seen, not even except
ing the Alps from Neufchatel. The
peaks looked enormously high as they
shot up behind the seaedge, far above
the first stratum of cloud which ran
along midway of the mountain in
deep, slate-colored belts Now and
then the vapor thinned to the fineness
of tulle and Brousa gauze, behind
which the mountain colors loOmed ia
vague yet radiant purity. Gradually
the ardent sun melted away the misty
straited belts of cloud, and the great
peaks stood out calmly and glorious
II y, ctfulgent in the crystal August
air, a scene of exquisite loneliness and
sublimity. AT one end a mighty
glacier ran down to the sea, and at
the other the pygmy mountains (2,000
or 5000 feet high we had been coast
ing lay like ebGn carvings against the
white, a ripple of dark velvet against
ermine.
For hours we steamed toward this
splendid picture. which, while grow
ing more and more distinc ct, did not APP
pear TO be any nearer than when we
first saw it. In the afternoon we
turned to the right of this range into
icy straits, and soon we were IN the
midst of scene more wonderful, per
haps, than that through which we
had Just passed. On the light-green
water lay literally hundreds of ice
bergs of all shapes and sizes, some a
deep translucent blue, the blue OF
cobalt, others green, others a pure
white, serrated, castellated, crenellat-
ed, ghttering-fr the size of a tur-
teen to that of a small church. We
seemed on the point Of entering that
ancient pal@ocrystic sea of which
the biologists speak-ice everywhere,
our ship cutting its way through i'm
pining ice. At length we cast
anchor in SO fathOms of water close to
the gigantic Muir glacier, which feeds
these ICY straits with their wonderful
masses Of crystal. This was the acme,
the eliminating point of our tour.
Before us lay the stupendous mass
of serrated ice, from 800 to 500 feet
high. and several miles wide, FROM
shore to shore, blue wondrous, mac
cessible, more ancient, perhaps, than
the mountains against which it rested,
running straight into the sea
where we were at anchor, every mo-
ment enormous fragments breaking
off and rolling down into the water
with a reverberation like clap OF
thunder. For hours we lay there as
if spell-bound by this magnificent
remnant Of glacial action, more
striking, to our thinking, than all
the other glaciers we had passed and
examined through our lenses even than
the Davidson glacier or the wonder
full incrustation along the Stickecn.