The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-06-22

gray old years 10 the form of moraines,
100 feet high, and appearing like a
range of hills.
The larger portion OF this crystal
river, perhaps an eighth of a mile in
width. is heaved into rounded hills
and beetling precipices, quite resem-
bling the sea in a storm; while the
middle and much the wider part is
splintered Into countless spires, and
needles, and pinnacles ten, twenty and
thirty feet in height, and of a beauti-
full ultra-marine at the base, shaded to
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 plunge and are shattered
into cloud of acicular crystals that
sparkle like the frosted snow under
full moon of winters night, only
with more color-they are diamonds
on the wing.
Again the whole surface is riven by
a thousand crevasses, along the bottom
OF which streams of clear water find
their way, often broken by waterfalls
that plunge further down into the
dark blue abysses out of sight.
These chasms are frightful gaps
to one peering down hun
dred feet between their tur-
quois walls. A slip. frail alpenstock,
feeble grasp of the guides rope, and
gravity would close the scene without
further ceremony.
The molecular structure of the gla-
cier is continually changing, adjusting
itself to the elevations and depressions
of its rocky bed, and hence there is an
incessant clicking and cracking. inter-
rupted here and there by an explosion
heard over every inch of the surface.
The whole scene is weird and strange
in sight and sound-in the voices that
rise to the air from the azure depths
fascinating because every step is peril
GUS. majestic from its masSiveness, and
awful because its march is irresisti-
BILE.
Consider what force in wearing
away mountains and glens an icy tor
rent must be one mile wide, 800 feet
deep, and in the middle flowing 60 feet
a day; it goes grinding and groaning
and cracking and startling in explo-
sions, all mingled in loud wall like
that from the Titans imprisoned under
Mount Etna.
Now let any one in fancy frame for
himself this picture: Snow-capped
mountains in the background, two of
them-Fairweather and Crillon-more
than $4,000 feet high, thick set with
glittering peaks and clear cut as sill
houettes an dark sky; the great gla-
cier, child of Arctic SHOWS, turreted
and pinnacl ed and splintered into a
thousand strange forms upon which
Iris has flung the varied hues of
amethyst and turquois and sapphire;
huge masses riven from the crystal
hANSl WAuh a.
and topping into an amber sea, thick
ly dotted with newborn and vagrant
icebergs; and all this scene glorifed
and TRANSPORTED by the setting sun.
Looking upon this picture through the
creative power of imagination one can
readily conceive that the enraptured
tourist, standing in the pres
ence of the realities, would call that
day spent with the Muir glacier the
day of all the days he ever passed in
gazing upon and listening to the wild
wonders of our planet.
But bark! That was not an explosion
of the glaciers artillery; it was the
echo of the steamers whistle ringing
along the glens Of the mountains, soft
ened, indeed, by distance, as are the
notes of the Alpine horn.
In just one hour we must be on the
ship or be left without couch or food or
fire in these wild and awful solitudes
ninety miles from the nearest habita-
ton, and we made it in time, regard
less of shoes or shins. Horace
w. Briggs, in Sitka Alaskan.