Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-14
EXPLORING ALASKA.
THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF A PARTY
OF SCIENTISTS. !.


Has Many Interesting Features-Lux
uriant Vegetation Where There Is Nc
Tce-St. Elias Not Volcano.
Mr.. Israel G. Russell has returned tc
Washington from that region of eternal
ice and snow in ALASKA, where the high
est peak in North America rises to an
altitude of 10000 feet from glacier
1000 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 reacbwith
luscious fruit, which compares favor
ably in point Of size and flavor With the
finest grown in temperate attitudes.
There are huckleberries, too, aud .ssal-
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 vast 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. Of
brown and black bears he saw and shot
great many. The expedition met with
enough perils, however, to satisfy the
most adventurous geographical explor-
ers. Nearly all of the climbing had to
be 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
feet. On one occasion they were de-
scending when they found that an ava
lanche had carried away the steps which
they had made in going up. The i'm
promptu staircase was destroyed for 300
feet, and they had to lower man by a
rope to chop out another, there being no
other way of getting down. Such acci-
dents as this were not uncommon.
HAlRBREADTH 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.
One night about 12 o'clock the party
was passing over bad place in the
Agassiz glacier. Two men were in the
lead, drawing Il sled. Suddenly they
disappeared from sight, having fallen
into fssure in 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 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 1900 feet thick, is interesting,
not merely because of its enormous size,
but also by reason of the fact that it is
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.
GLACIAL RIVER.
Where the land in that region is bare
of Ice the vegetation attains an almost
tropical luxuriance, and the Arctic
jungles are well nigh impossible to the
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, it's stems
running along the ground for some dis
tance and then turning upward. Every
part OF it's surface, even to the ribs Of
the leaves, is thickly set with spines,
which infict painful wounds, and break
ing off in the flesh cause fostering sores
In the Lucia glacier occurs most inter
esting feature in the shape of glacial
river which comes out from mountain
through an archway of ice, flows for a
mile and 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 ,xnter the tunnel and drift through,
after the fashion of Allan Quatermain
and Vi. NAopogaas. The greatest risk in
such an Undertaking would be from fall
lido blocks of ice. At the mouth of the
tunnel there >are always confused noises
and rhythni,@ vibrations to be heard
from the dark r. Ncesses within. The air
is filed with pull Nations like deep organ
notes, and it requia Nes but little imagina-
ton to transform IL >ese strange sounds
into the voices and 8, sngs of inhabitants
Of the neither world. It used to be sup
posed that Mount st. Eli Ns was volcano,
and sea captains sailing an the Pacific
have often beheld what l,ey imagined
to be smoke issuing from 1ts summit;
but this is a mistake, and it rs probable
that the alleged smoke was T, sauy ava
lanrha dust blown upward by tue wind.