IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 



When I received his kind offer I didn't compre- 

 hend the full significance of it, but when we 

 entered that beautiful little car, with drawing 

 room, berths, sleeping rooms, containing real 

 brass beds, kitchen, and a first-class Japanese 

 cook — and realized that all of this comfort was 

 ours for the two days' travel to McCarthy as a 

 guest of Mr. Corser — well, we immediately called 

 a meeting and voted him the most popular man 

 in Alaska, bar none. As we had plenty of room 

 in our private car, we invited Governor Riggs 

 and his wife, also Dr. Martin, the government 

 geologist, to join us as far as Chitina, their rail- 

 road destination. 



As we passed the Miles and Childs glaciers, at 

 Mile 50, lying on opposite sides of the track a 

 mile or so apart, we heard thunderous concussion 

 sounds that might have been mistaken for can- 

 nonading, but on looking out we saw clouds of 

 mist arising from the end of the Childs Glacier 

 where an immense column of ice, probably a 

 hundred or more feet high, had separated from 

 the body of the glacier and had gone crashing 

 into the Copper River, which flows along the foot 

 of this glacier. This ice field is always moving, 

 and naturally, as it does so the river continues 

 undermining its mouth. When the cavern made 

 by the river gets too deep the ice must fall. This 

 it is doing ceaselessly, for during our ten-minute 

 stop there we heard two or three more thunder- 

 like reports. 



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