214 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



cially striking beauty that we saw was an ' ' ice castle" 

 at the summit of one of the mountains, the perpen- 

 dicular sides of which were, we judged, not less 

 than five hundred feet — possibly more than twice 

 that. It was suggested that the sides were of 

 icicles from the melting snow on its table-like top. 

 Nearer view also brought out the vast snow-fields 

 on the lower levels of the mountains. All admitted 

 that they had never seen any object so strangely 

 beautiful as that ice castle, or vast altar, or what- 

 ever the fancy chose to associate with it. The 

 precipitous form of the sea-cliffs attracts attention. 

 One of these displayed a long mountain with its end 

 cut off sharply and perpendicularly, leaving a cliff 

 not less than two thousand feet high. There is no 

 talus, no beach under them. The explanation of 

 all this came to us as we approached the straits 

 through which we were to pass to the north of the 

 Aleutian chain of islands. We had been floating in 

 a peaceful sea, which was dimpling and wrinkling 

 in the bright sunlight, when as we approached the 

 pass, the heavy ship rolled till she dipped her boats. 

 This long chain of islands, as you know, reaches 

 nearly across the Pacific. There is a long west- 

 ward trend of the continent, ending in the Alaskan 

 peninsula, from the point of which the sea has cut 

 these islands. Thus when the tide rises, it piles 

 up along the peninsular coast, rushes westward, and 

 attempting to break through into Bering Sea, there 

 is tremendous uproar and turmoil even in calmest 



