The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-02-10

long, continuous dull boom Of a torrent
and one gets a faint idea of the over
whelming grandeur OF these fierce noun
tain forces that sweep whole forests
away like loose matches. With the ava
lanche one law alone is known. Every
thing must keep out of the way This
holds the Investigator at a guardedly re-
spectful distance, and his observation
point is chosen with the strategy of q
scout, says the New York Post.
In the SelkirkS, where the snowfall is
heavier than in the Rockies, and the
slopes more precfpitous, with fewer foot
hills, avalanches have an alarming trick
of jumping all guards and changing their
course without notice. But on both rang
es there are many places where one can
in perfect safety watch the snow tor
rents crash over paisaded precipice with
a roar that sets the very air vibrating.
WHERE THE sNOWsLIDE STARTS.
Lake Louise, thirty miles west of the
entrance to the main northern Rockies,
is an ideal spot for observing the ways of
an avalanche. A mountain of snow,
shutting off all view to mIdheavens, runs
sheer across one end of the lake, in a
continuous, horizontal sky line, like a
wall Of alaba ster. Down this in parallel
vertical lines are etched the scorngs of
numerous avalanches, that shoot over
the lower lodges in a final plunge. To
the left OF Mount Victoria are Caste
Crags and LEROY, massive with snow Of
Unreasonable depth and fantastic form.
Behind these peaks is a giant basion,
guarding the way to Paradise valley.
This is Mount Temple, a huge, domed
granite pile, towering high above the
clouds in an almost straight ascent, its
naked rock, striped, grooved and chalked
into q thousand odd designs by falling
% Loo NAlD Ill
lanches may be see during the entire
summer, and in the Selkirks there Is
scarcely a mountain of any altitude
whose foreSted TANKS do not show the
long, narrow, clean strip of an avalanche
that has swept from summit to base
1t is when the heat of early summer
melts The snow of the lower slopes, loos-
erfng the foundations of the vast white
fields along the peaks, that ayalanches
are most active and frequent AS the
thaw IS greatest at midday, that is the
best time to watch the snow torrents
flinging down from airy heights to ahys-
NAL depths. On Mount Victoria for in
stance, between II in the morning and 2
in the afternoon, as many as thirteen
different avalanches have been seen
Smaller volumes of snow pour down as
frequently from the south side of Mount
Temple, and from the white edges of
Castle Crags and Lefroy-edges that
from a distance seem only a few feet
deep. abut on actual measurement are
from zoo to 300 vertical feet-break enor-
nous masses of solid, hard-packed snow,
whirffng slowly over and over through
the air till the falling weight gains ire
!. mendous momentum. Then the whole
| is. shattered into a thousand fragments
against projecting lodges and crashes
down in shower of snow that clouds
the air for an hour after the fall.
OTHER CAUSES POTENT.
The same course is not always followed.
A sudden heat sometimes frees an ac-
| c1'tnlsation at an unexpected point, and
| the Irresistible volume plows new fur
row for itself down the SCARED noun