A Cruise in the Cassiar 



sight, from their highest fountains to the level of the 

 sea. 



Cares of every kind were quickly forgotten, and 

 though the Cassiar engines soon began to wheeze 

 and sigh with doleful solemnity, suggesting coming 

 trouble, we were too happy to mind them. Every face 

 glowed with natural love of wild beauty. The islands 

 were seen in long perspective, their forests dark green 

 in the foreground, with varying tones of blue growing 

 more and more tender in the distance; bays full of 

 hazy shadows, graduating into open, silvery fields of 

 light, and lofty headlands with fine arching insteps 

 dipping their feet in the shining water. But every eye 

 was turned to the mountains. Forgotten now were 

 the Chilcats and missions while the word of God was 

 being read in these majestic hieroglyphics blazoned 

 along the sky. The earnest, childish wonderment 

 with which this glorious page of Nature's Bible was 

 contemplated was delightful to see. All evinced 

 eager desire to learn. 



"Is that a glacier," they asked, "down in that 

 canon? And is it all solid ice?" 



"Yes." 



"How deep is it?" 



"Perhaps five hundred or a thousand feet." 



"You say it flows. How can hard ice flow?" 



" It flows like water, though invisibly slow." 



"And where does it come from?" 



"From snow that is heaped up every winter on the 

 mountains." 



"And how, then, is the snow changed into ice?" 



[57l 



