Travels in Alaska 



A few ventured on a mile or two farther. The day was 

 delightful, and our one hundred and eighty passengers 

 were happy, gazing at the beautiful blue of the bergs 

 and the shattered pinnacled crystal wall, awed by the 

 thunder and commotion of the falling and rising ice- 

 bergs, which ever and anon sent spray flying several 

 hundred feet into the air and raised swells that set all 

 the fleet of bergs in motion and roared up the beach, 

 telling the story of the birth of every iceberg far and 

 near. The number discharged varies much, influenced 

 in part no doubt by the tides and weather and seasons, 

 sometimes one every five minutes for half a day at a 

 time on the average, though intervals of twenty or 

 thirty minutes may occur without any considerable 

 fall, then three or four immense discharges will take 

 place in as many minutes. The sound they make is 

 like heavy thunder, with a prolonged roar after deep 

 thudding sounds a perpetual thunderstorm easily 

 heard three or four miles away. The roar in our tent 

 and the shaking of the ground one or two miles dis- 

 tant from points of discharge seems startlingly near. 

 I had to look after camp-supplies and left the ship 

 late this morning, going with a crowd to the glacier; 

 then, taking advantage of the fine weather, I pushed 

 off alone into the silent icy prairie to the east, to 

 Nunatak Island, about five hundred feet above the 

 ice. I discovered a small lake on the larger of the two 

 islands, and many battered and ground fragments of 

 fossil wood, large and small. They seem to have come 

 from trees that grew on the island perhaps centuries 

 ago. I mean to use this island as a station in setting 



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