Scenic Grandeur of Alaska 243 



break into a sierra of peaks of nearly the same 

 height. The ravines between these peaks carry 

 tributary ice-streams into the basin. The sea of 

 ice spills over at two places in small glaciers, but 

 the main channel of its exit is toward the south, 

 not proceeding far before it reaches a precipice. 

 The icebergs are pushed out till they break off of 

 their own weight, and fall two thousand feet. The 

 cataract is, I judged, over a mile long, and less 

 than a mile and a half wide. 



That is rather an astonishing story, isn't it? 

 Well, if I were ten years younger, I would be 

 there on or before the first day of June next, not- 

 withstanding the horrible tangle of thicket and 

 swamp which lies between the shore and the glacier. 

 It would be a cheap way of earning the finest monu- 

 ment in North America. 



I had noticed a singular premonition of a coming 

 fog on the mountains of the Aleutian Islands. The 

 peak puts on a wig — every peak's wig of the same 

 pattern, round and smoothly combed at the top, 

 and curling out and up and away from the peak on 

 all sides. There is nothing of the woolly and capri- 

 cious cloud-form about these wigs. They are 

 smooth, perfect curves, breaking into graceful 

 up-curls. About two o'clock of the next day after 

 leaving Cook's Inlet we could see the point of 

 Montague Island about twelve miles ahead of us, 

 and the mainland five miles to the left, but the out- 

 at-sea rocks, which everywhere characterize the 



