Morning journal and courier., 1889-01-25
THE CHEAT GLACIER.
A Sight Which Could Not be Matched iR Grandeur on she Entire Earth.

THE CHEAT GLACIER. A Sight Which Could Not be Matched
 in Grandeur on she Entire Earth. From Daylight Land]
 ''So we stood steadfastly gazing at the vast vision, enraptured, when an exclamation from a man behind us faced us around, and there to the north and east we saw a sight which may not perhaps be matched in it's grandeur and surroundings on this earth of ours-a glacier, vast, lofty, immense, but tressed, Assured, creviced; section of the Mississippi tilted up obliquely and frozen 1 solid; the St. Lawrence pouring boldly over | a mountain range ten thousand feet above | you and turned on the instant into ice, stiff ened solid at it's maddest plunge; a creation of ten thousand years; monument above | those past, dead years, which all the rain 1 and shine of other equal years to come will | not efface; standing cold, monstrous, mo- | tionless, silent, sublime, within 8 distance
 so short from our parlor car that even the 1 weakest woman smallest child in it might
 by an easy stroll stand under it's ponderous front Heavens! how small, how feeble, how insignificant seemed the engine of our
 heavy train, with it's sobs and paintings, and
 puny puffs of power, beside that monstrous
 creation of ages, that landscape of frozen
 force, that overhanging world of chained
 energy which, should nature ever loosen the
 chilled links which chained it to that moun-
 tain pass. would sweep our engine, train and
 wonder house away like chips; aye, crush,
 grind and pulyerize them all to finest dust
 go fine that were it dry the winds might lift
 1t as they lift ashes and blow it through the l air, invisible to mortal eye.
 l "sNever shall it be said,' exclaimed the
 judge, that l came to such an environment | of majesty this and passed heedlessly on.
 Here we will stop day and night and see
 the sunset splendor and the sunrise glory on
 these peaks, and the moonlight whiten the
 surface of that frozen field. There is not ice enough in Switzerland to make that sim gle glacier yonder. Let the train move on.
 We four have wandered on the earth too
 widely and seen too many of it's wonders not
 to recognize the extraordinary and do hon. age to it.
 "And so the train rolled down the grade, | around the swell of the mountain beyond,
 and left us four gray-headed boys standing
 above the glacial torrent, gazing and won
 dering.
 "That afternoon we took the trail-an easy
 relay-which led us to the glazier's front.
 Slowly we drew our line of progress toward
 it. The fit mood was on us all. We were | alone we four. We were intelligent enough
 to appreciate the awful phenomenon. We
 saw it with the eyes Of many years. We
 could measure it by European comparison.
 We could weigh it in the scales of world- 1 wide knowledge. Two of us had footed the
 Alpine passes One had seen the Himalay-
 as. Another had wintered within the arctic 1 circle.
 | "Slowly we moved onward. A few rods
 of motion onward and we would pause. We were all eyes, all feeling. We felt we were
 approaching a fragment of eternity. We 1 were drawing nigh to and gazing at bit of the everlasting. Before us was the work of ages Here the centuries had stopped. Be-
 tween these monstrous mountains. Time
 had come to full halt, powerless to go one , foot farther. Here before us, with folded wings white-faced, hoary-headed, his scythe held in his stifened hand, we saw him stand, statue of ice.
 "'Older than Rome, older than Egypt, , older than mani" murmuIed the judge sol- ) emnly as he gazed.
 ''In front of the glacier was great round : wall of sand, of cobbles or boulders. Its 1 pressure drove downward to the bedrock o1 the world and ploughed the surface earth. "This plough ploughs slowly, but i 5 ploughs deep,' remarked Colonel Coffee al ? he ran his eye along the huge ridge. "'Think who stesdles it., said the judge ''The sun sank from sight behind ths western ridge. The gray shaft of Sir Don l aid flushed, reddened, then blazed as with F l fire.
 ,, "From amid the dark frs above us nigh softly shook her raven plumage and feath l cred us with gloom. Then she shook her ga
 
 D darkened. Anon she sailed, a vast lorna tion of blackness, above the peaks. Th' skies saw her coming and welcomed her witt 8 every window lighted. The Indian mytf 8 wes realized. The raven brooded the world
 'tBut the great glacier amid the gloom T still shimmered whitely. From between ths pillars of darkness, from the cavernous t blackness of night, it looked forth like the = face of a dead man from the mouth of { , l grave.
 "Thus we four sat in the darkness watch. 1 ing and pondering, while through the gloom 6 and stiffness the glacial torrent at our feet 6 tore it's line of hoarse noise.
 "sSeel' I exclaimed. The glacier is grow 8 ing winter. Its paleness begins to brighten : Lookl There is a gleam in that upper crev Q ice! and see-see that flash of whitel'
 "'The moon the moonp cried the judge @ The moon is rising. Now we shall see the @ spectacle of a lifetime!'
 | Excuse me, reader; cannot write i . downl I know the limitation of letters 6 Even could tint them with all the colors O ,- the pallet it were in vain. Imagine our DO l. sition, standing in that gorge, deep, deep 8 down at the very roots of these monstrou @ mountains, within the inclosure of their aw IT full environment; the stiffness, which tn if roar Of the torrent divided but did not dis e turb; the whole world black with the black s ness of night when it smothers the wood e out of sight of the eye; the great glacier il 70 front of us, vast, monstrous, formless, 0 lay dimly outlined in the gloom; then imag y inc it growing, growing, growing upon tn Il sight, See it brighten and widen out int of view.
 "See the gleams begin to run over it. Sc le that flash of white fire strike the crest an' B. run crinkling along the lofty ridge until O. connects the two opposite peaks with lin i- of living light.
 H. "See the crevices gleam and glisten bright in CT and brighter. Behold the sparkles an as flashes of fire start up here and there at rar
 dom, flash, shift and fade; and then, as th Iy rounded orb, vast of size, intense, rose ma