Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-07-10


Drop from It's BeetIing Front.
Prof Horace W. Briggs, in the Sitka
Alaskan, describes the most notable Of the
glaciers of Southeastern Alaska 1t IL
called the Muir, and is named from Prof
John Muir, a geologist Of some reputation,
since he gave the first uncolored descrip-
tion Of It. 1t is forty miles long, and back
on the land, IN basin of the mountains.
Being reinforced by fifteen tributaries
coming down the glens from different
points Of the compass, IT swells TO an icy
sea twenty-five miles in diameter. Thence
1t moves with resistless power, bearing
rocks and long lines Of detritus on its bill
lowy surface. Just before it reaches the
bay 1t Is compressed by two sentinel
mountains into and is forced through a
gorge one mile in width.
Emerging from this narrow gateway 1t
moves on, at the rate of forty to sixty feet
q day, to the waters whence it originally
came, buttressing the bay with a perpeu-
dlcular wall 800 feet high, 300 feet of ultra
marine crystals tipped with purest white
being above the surface, and, being
pushed beyond its support in the under
lying rock, battle begins between CO.
hesion and gravity. The latter force al
ways prevails, and vast masses break from
the glacial torrent with the combined crash
Of falling walls and heavy thunder, q
tumble into the bay with q dash and a
shock that agitates the waters miles away,
making navigation perilous to craft of all
sizes. The almost deafening roar made
when these masses are rent away, the
splashinR baptism they receive in their
fall and the leaping waters are lively wit
nesses TO the birth Of an iceberg, which
hencefortb, as an independent existence,
goes on its mission Of girding the shores,
butting against its fellows and Of soaring
navigators.
While the ship was resting unmoored near
the front of this icy barrier, we were
startled by the sudden appearance Of q
mass Of dark crystal, vastly larger than our
own ship, shooting up from the depths and
tossing our steamer a. II 1t were an egg
shell. As the vessel careened the fright
ened passengers were sent whirling against
her, over chairs or PROSTATE on the deck.
This strange visitor had doubtless been
broken on from the roots Of the icy mount
ain, hundreds Of feet below the surface.
and hence had Unexpectedly appeared upon
the scene. Had 1t struck the ship fairly
nothing but q miracle could have saved US.
Having recovered somewhat from our
dumb amazement, about twenty Of US were
sent on shore in the captains gig. Landing
some distance below the ice wall we climbed
seventy feet up lateral moraine, crawled,
shoe-deep in wet gravel down into the val
ley of a glacial river, forded It, padded
through glacial mud covered with shingle
Just deep enough to hide the creamy pools,
slipped PROSTATE on the ice made PREACHER
GUS by a thin disguise Of detritus, and
baTked our shins and cut our shoes on the
sharp, angular blocks Of granite and basalt
strewn profusely along our perilous route.
Blocks Of the finest marble hedged our
pathway; trod on chips of jasper and chal-
oedony, the product OF different mountains
FAR up on the peninsula, and we passed two
e1uuisitely beautiful powders Of Yeined
porphyry, weighing 200 or 300 pounds each,
rounded and polished by centuries Of attri-
ton. They were Of a dark purple, streaked
with quartz spotlessly white, very desirable
specimens for cabinet, or for out-of-door
ornAmentation.
Stretched along the base Of the mount
aius till they are only line in the distance
were the records of those gray old years
In the form Of moraines q hundred feet
high and appearing like range Of hills.
The larger portion of this crystal river,
perhaps an eighth Of mile in width, Is
heaved into rounded hills and beetlinR
precipices, quite resembling the sea in
storm; while the middle and much the
wider part is splintered into countless
spires and needles and pinnacles, ten,
twenty, thirty feet in height, and of beau
tiful ultramarine at the base shaded to q
dead white at the summit.
In the onward march Of the glacier these
pinnacles are occasionally wrenched from
their seats in the solid ice beneath=-they
nod, then totter, and then make q plunge,
and are shattered into . cloud Of acicular
crystals that sparkle like the frosted snow
under full moon of winters night, only
with more Of color-they are diamonds on
the wing.
Again the whole surface 10 riven by a
Thousand crevices, along the bottom Of
which streams of clear water ind their
way, often broken by waterfalls tplunge
further down into the dark blue abysses
out Of sight. These chasms are frightful
gaps to one peering down hundreA feet
between their turquoise walls. slip, a
frail alpenstock, feeble grasp OF the
guides rope, and gravity would close the
scene without further ceremony.
The molecular structure Of the glacier is
continually changing, adjusting itself to the
elevations and depressions OF its rocky
bed, and hence there IL an incessant click
ing and cracking, interrupted here and
there by an explosion heard over every inch
Of the surface. -. -.
The whole scene IL weird and strange in
sight and sound-in the voices that rise TO
the air from the azure depths--fasoinating
because every step IL perilous, majestic
from its massiveness and awful because it,
march is irresistible.
Consider what q force in wearing away
mountains and glens an icy torrent must
be, one mile wide, eight hundred feet deep,
and In the middle flowing sixty feet day;
1t goes grinding and groaning and cracking
In startling explosions, all mingled In loud
wall like that from the Titans imprisoned
under Mount Atna.
Now, let any one in fancy fraEBe for him
self this picture: Snow-capped mountains
in the background, two of them, Fair
weather and Crillon, more than fifteen thou
sand feet high, thick, set with glltterinG
peaks aud olear-cut as silhouettes on q darh
sky; the great glacier, child of Arctic
SHOWS, turreted and pinnacled and spin
tered into thousand strange forms upor
which Iris has flung the varied hues o.
amethyst and turquoise and sapphire; hpg'
masses riven from the crystal river with {
laundering roar, reeling and topping int
an amber sea, thickly dotted with new
born and vagrant ioebergS; and ali thii
scene glorihed and TRANSPORTED by the set
ting sun Looking upon this picture
through the creative power Of imagination
one can readily conceive that the en-
raptured tourist. standing in the presenc'
of the realities, would call that day spen
with the Muir glacier the DAY Of all tn
days he ever passed IL gazing upon ant
listening to the wild wonders Of our planet
Caste at BaIlstOn, ". Y.
A friend recently told an Albany On. Y.
Express man that he had learned where the,
draw the dividing line between the uppe
and lower crusts of Ballston society. 4
,,esident Of that village was showing hin