The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1892-01-14
EXPLORING ALASKA.
THRILLING EXPERIENCES Of PARTY
OF SCIENTISTS.

The Strange Land of the Par Northwest
Has Many Interes:in. Features-Lux-
nriant Vegetation Where There Is No
Ice-st. Elias Not a Volcano.
Mr.. Israel G. Russell has returned TO
Washington from that region of eternal
Ice and snow in Alaska, where the HIGH
est peak in North America rises to an
altitude of $4,000 feet from a glacier
l,OOO square miles in area and as big as
all those of the Alps put together.
Along the edge of the glacier, all the
way from Icy bay to Yakutat bay, there
extends strip of green coast which is
covered with luxuriant vegetation
strawberry vines cover the ground for
miles, and the verdant fields are red
dened as far as the eye can reach with
luscious fruit, which compares favor
ably IN point of size and flavor with the
nnest grown in temperate ATTITUDES.
Ihere are huckleberries, too, and "sal-
mon berries which are something be.
tween blackberries and raspberries, but
OF giant size, measuring nearly two
inches in diameter. All the lowlands
are carpeted with violets, buttercups
yellow monkey flowers and other wild
blossoms. Here and there, in the midst
OF the'yast ice fields, are the loveliest
gardens watered by the melting snow.
There are plenty of grizzly bears in
the vicinity of Mount ST. Elias, but Mr.
Russell did not find them very danger
Gus. He says that his encounters with
them reminded him of killing pigs. Oe
brown and black bears he saw and sboN
great many. The expedition met with
enough perils, however, to satisfy the
most adventurous geographical explor-
ers' Nearly all of the climbing hadsto
oe done up steep walls Of ice and Snow
by cutting steps. AT almost any time
slip would have precipitated the party
down the frozen precipices thousands of
rect. On one occasion they were de-
scendIng when they found that an. ava
Ianche had carried away the stepsswhich
they had made in going up. The i'm
promptu staircase was destroyedrfor 800
feet. and they had to lower a man by a
rope tochop out another, there being NO
other way of getting down. Such acct
dents as this We're not uncommon.
HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES.
Avalanches were continually falling,
rushing down the slopes with the speed
of railway trains and with a roar like
thunder that could be heard twenty
miles away. g.
SOne night about 12 o'clock the party
was passing over a bad place in the
Agasslz glacier. Two men were in the
lead, drawing a sled. Suddenly they
disappeared from sight, having fallen
INTO assure III the ice Luckily they
were caught upon projecting ledge at
the depth of about twenty feet, else they
would never have been seen again.
They were hauled out with ropes. The
next day in the same neighborhood Mr..
Russell CHANGED to look behind him and
saw that the ice field over which he had
just passed was gone, leaving an enor-
nous hole of unknown depth. Another
time one of his men tumbled into crew
ice, and was only saved by the pack
fastened to his shoulder, which inter
rupted his progress through a twist in
the frozen tunnel that had yawned for
him.
The Agassiz glacier is one of the four
great glaciers which, together with about
thousand small ones, flow out from the
mountains at the north to the mighty
Malaspina glacier, pouring their streams
of ice continually into this vast frozen
sea- This glacier of Malaspina, from
1900 to 1000 feet thick, is interesting,
not merely because of its enormous size,
h11t nj hIy7.a Of +ho e.
the only one now in existence of the
same type as the glacier which formerly
covered all of this continent as far south
as Philadelphia and st. Louis, leaving
traces that are visible to this day in
scratches on the rocks.
A GLACIAL RIVER
Where the land in that region is bare
of ice the vegetation attains an almost
tropical luxuriance, and the Arctic
jungles are we'll nigh impossible to th3
explorer. One of the chief obstacles en-
countered in threading them is plant
known as the "devil's club" which grows
to height of ten or fifteen feet, its stems
running along the ground for some dis
lance and then turning upward. Every
part of it's surface, even to the ribs of
the leaves, is thickly set with spines,
which infiict painful wounds, and break
ing off in the flesh cause fostering sores.
In the Lucia glacier occurs a most inter
esting feature in the shape of glacial
river which comes out from mountain
through an archway of ice, flows for
mile and a half in plain view, and then
is lost to sight in another tunnel. Where
the stream energies finally is unknown.
No explorer has as yet been bold enough
TO enter the tunnel and drift through,
after the fashion of Allan Quatermain
and Umslopogaas. The greatest risk in
such an undertaking would be from fall
idg blocks of ice. At the mouth of the
tunnel there are always confused noises
and rhythmic vibrations to be heard
from the dark recesses within. The air
is filled with pulsations like deep organ
notes, and it requires but little magma
ton to transform these strange sounls
into the voices and Sonos of inhabitants