The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-10-14
AN ALASKAN GLACIER,
A River Stopped Short and Turned to Ic
in Its Alabaster Bed.

Picture to yourself a vast river, two
or three miles in breadth, pouring down
| from the eminence of an icy peak thirty
miles away-a river fed by numerous
lateral tributaries that flow from every
declivity. Imagine this river lashed to
fury and covered from end to end,
fathoms deep. with foam, and then the
whole suddenly frozen and fixed for
evermore-that is your glacier. Some
| times the surface is stained with the
debris OF the mountain; sometimes the
bluish-green tinge of the ancient ice
crops out; generally the surface is as
| white as down and very fair to look
upon, for at a distance-we were about
eight miles from the lower edge of it
| the eye detects no flaw. 1t might be a
torrent of milk and honey. 1t might
almost be compared in its immaculate
beauty to one of the rivers of Paradise
| that flow hard by the throne of God.
| 1t seems to be moving in majesty, and
yet is stationary, or nearly SO, for we
| might sit by its frozen shore and grow
gray with watching and even our dull
eyes could detect no change in even a
ripple Of it. A river of Paradise, in
deed, escaped from the gardens of the
blessed, but overcome by the squalor of
this little globe it has stopped short and
, turned to ice in its alabaster bed.
One evening about $50 o'clock and
the sun still high above the western
mountain range we found ourselves op-
poslte the Davidson Glacier. 1t passes
out of broad ravine and spreads fan
like upon the shore under the neighbor-
ing cliffs. 1t is three miles in breadth
along the front and 1900 feet in height
when it begins to crumble and slope to-
ward the shore. A terminal moraine a
| mile and halt 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 approach
ing. The fate of this solemn wood is
sealed. Anon the mightiest 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 fissures and the
deep discolorations. We saw how the
| mOnstrous mass wound in and out be-
tween the mountains, and crowded
them on every side, and rubbed their
skins Oft IN spots, and left grooVed lines
like high-water marks along the face of
the cliffs; how it gathered as it went
| and ground to powder and to paste
whatever came within its reach, be-
! coming worse and worse and greeder
and more rapacious as it creeps 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 confusion;
it will have left ruin and desolation in
its track, but it will likewise have cleft
out a valley with walls polished like
brass and a 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 Oh
| eartkcould have done the job so neatly.
One sees this work in process and in
fresh completion in Alaska. The bald
islet yonder, with 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, per-
haps. glacier, 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 hereabout; so all these
northlands, from sea TO sea, the world
over, have been laboriously licked into
shape by the irresistible tide of ice.
Verify, the mills of the gods grind
slowly, but what grist they grind