Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1886-12-10
ALASKAN GLACIERS.


ice III Inef AlhDaSter Beds.
Picturn to yourrelf a vast river, two
or three miles in breadth, pouring
down from the emincnce of an icy peak
thirty miles away-n grand river fed
by numerous lateral tributaries that
flow from every decliyity. Imagine
this river lashed to fury and covered
from end to end, fathoms deep, with
foam, and then the whole suddenly
frozen and fixed forcvcrmore-thati is
your glacier. Sometimes the surface
is stained with the debris of the
mountain. sometimes the bluish-grcen
unge of the ancient ice crops out; gem
orally the surface is as white as down
and very fair to look upon, for at
distance eve were about eight miles
from the lower edge of 1.-THE eye de-
tects no flaw. IT might be torrent of
milk and honey. 1t might also be
compared in its immaculate beauty to
one Of the rivers of Paradise that llow
hard by the throne of God. 1t seems
to be moving in majesty, AMI yet it is
stationary, or nearly so, for we might
sit by its frozen shore and grow gray
with watching and even our dull ewes
could detect no change in even ripple
OF it. A river of Paradise, indeed, es.
capped from the gardens of the b csscd
but overcome by tho squalor of this
little globe 1t has stopped short and
turned to ice in its alabastor bed.
One evening about $3.50 o'clock and
the sun still high above the western
mountain range we found ourselves
opposite the Davidson Glacier. 1t
passes out of Il broad ravine and
spreads fanlke upon the shore under
the neighboring cliffs. 1t is three
miles in breadth along the front and
l,2OO feet in height when it begins TO
crumble and slope toward the shorc.
a terminal moraine mile and half
in depth separates it from the sea. A
forest, or the remnant of forest,
stands between it and the water it is
slowly but surely approaching. The
fate OF this solemn wood is sealed.
Anon the mighlicst among these
mighty trees will fall like grain before
the sickle Of the reaper. We were
very near this glacier. We saw all the
wrinkles and lissures and the deep dis
colorations. We saw how the mon
strous mass wound in and out between
the mountains, and crowded them on
every side, and rubbed their skins off
i'll spots, and left grooved lines like
high-water marks along tho face of the
cliffs; how it gathered as it went aud
ground t1 powder and to paste what
ever came within its reach, becoming
worse and worse and grcedier and
more rapacious as it crecps down into
the lowlands, so that when it reaches
the sea, where it must end its course
and dissolve away, it will have covered
itself with slime and oonfusion it will
have left ruin and dcsolation in its
tracks, but it will likewise have cleft
out valley with walls polished like
brass and floor as smooth as marble;
one that will be utilized in after ages,
when it has carpeted itself with green
and hung its walls with the tapestry of
its vine. Surely no other power ON
earth could have done the job so
neatly,
One sees this work In process and in
fresh completion in Alaska. The bald
islet yOnder, with q surface as smooth
as glass and with delicate tracery along
Its polished sides-tracery that looks
like etching Upon glass-was modelled
by glaciers not so very many years
ago. within the century, some Of them,
perhaps. Aglacier, probably the very
glacier we are seeking, followed this
track and ground them all into shape;
every angle of action, of motion shall |
say, is indelibly impressed upon each
and every rock hcreabout; so all these
northlands, from sea to sea, the world
over, have been laborously licked into
shape by the irresistible tide of ice.
Verify, the mills of the gods grind
slowly. but what grist they grind!-
Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.