Travels in Alaska 



which the glacier surface disintegrates were jammed 

 and extended back farther and farther till they com- 

 pletely covered and concealed the water. Into this I 

 suddenly plunged, after crossing thousands of really 

 dangerous crevasses, but never before had I encoun- 

 tered a danger so completely concealed. Down I 

 plunged over head and ears, but of course bobbed 

 up again, and after a hard struggle succeeded in 

 dragging myself out over the farther side. Then I 

 pulled my sled over close to Nunatak cliff, made haste 

 to strip off my clothing, threw it in a sloppy heap and 

 crept into my sleeping-bag to shiver away the night 

 as best I could. 



July 21. Dressing this rainy morning was a miser- 

 able job, but might have been worse. After wringing 

 my sloppy underclothing, getting it on was far from 

 pleasant. My eyes are better and I feel no bad effect 

 from my icy bath. The last trace of my three months' 

 cough is gone. No lowland grippe microbe could sur- 

 vive such experiences. 



I have had a fine telling day examining the ruins 

 of the old forest of Sitka spruce that no great time 

 ago grew in a shallow mud-filled basin near the 

 southwest corner of the glacier. The trees were pro- 

 tected by a spur of the mountain that puts out here, 

 and when the glacier advanced they were simply 

 flooded with fine sand and overborne. Stumps by the 

 hundred, three to fifteen feet high, rooted in a stream 

 of fine blue mud on cobbles,, still have their bark on. 

 A stratum of decomposed bark, leaves, cones, and old 



