The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1886-11-23

Merry Rivers stopped Short and Turned to
Ice In Their Alabaster Beds.


Ice In Their Alabaster Beds.
Picture TO yourself vast river, two
or three miles in breadth, pouring
down from the eminence of an icy peak
thirty miles AWAY grand river fed
by numerous lateral tributaries that
flow from every declivity. Imagine
this river dashed to fury and covered
from end 10 end, fathomS dcep, with
foam, and then the whole suddenly
frozen and fixed fOrevermurc that is
your glacier. Sometimes the surface
i stained with the debris of the
mountain. sometimes the bluiSh-green
tinge of the ancient ice crops out: gen.
orally the surface i as white H. down
and very fair 10 look upon, for at q
distance we were about eight miles
from the lower edge of 1.-THE eye de-
milk and honey. 1t might also be-
compared in IFS immaculate beauty to
one of the rivers of Paradise that flow
hard by the throne of God. Ii seems
to be moving in majesty, and yet il is
stationary, or nearly 80, for we might
sit by its frozen shore and grow gray
with watching and even our dull eyes
could detect $50 change i'm even Z ripple
of il. A river of Paradise. indeed. eS-
capped from the gardens of the Blessed.
but overcome b. the Squalor of this
little globe IL has stopped short and
turned to ice i'm its alabaster bed
IL, -. 4 a
the sun still high above the western
mountain range we found ourselves
opposite the Davidson Glacier. Ii
passes out of 4 broad rayine and
spreads fanlikc upon the shore under
the neighboring cliffs. Ii i three
miles in breadth along the front and
LOO feet in height when il begins To
crumble and slope toward the shore.
A terminal mOraine n mile and half
in depth separates it from the sea. A
forest, or the remnant of q forest,
stands between il and the water it Is
slowly but surely approaching. The
fate of this solemn wood is sealed.
Anon the mightiest among these
mighty trees will fail like grain before
the sickle of the reaper. We were
very near this glacier. We saw all the
wrinkles and assures and the deep dis
celebrations. We saw how the mon
strous mass wound in and out between
the mountains, and crowded them on
every side, and rubbed their skins of
in spots, and left grooved lines like
high-water marks along the face of the
cliffs: how il gathered rs it went and
ground 10 powder and 20 paste what
ever came within Its reach, becoming
worse and worse and greedier and
more rapaciOus as il crecpS down into
the lowlands. so that when j: reaches
the sea, where il must end its course
and dissolve away, IL will have covered
itself with slime and confusion: il will
have left ruin and dcSolation in it's
tracks. but il will likewise have cleft
out valley with walls polished like
brass and floor aS smooth as marble:
one that will bp utilized in after ages.
when it has carpcted itself with green
and hung It's walls with the tapestry of
It's 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 Wonder. with a surface a. smooth
as glass and with delicate tracery along
its polished sideS-tracery that looks
ike etching upon glaSS-wa> modelled
ny glaciers not so very many years
ago; within the century, some of them.
perhaps. a 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. i indelibly impressed upon each
and every rock hercabout; SO all these
northlands. from sea 10 sea. the world
over, have been lahorou>ly licked into
shape by the irresistible tide of ice.
Verify, the mills of the gods grind
slowly. hut what @rist they grind
fOr. SIN lyHnri>rJ fb-ggirlr.