1876 MOUNT PULLEN. 275 



from the mount, the ravine up which we had journeyed, 

 over hard snow, opened out into a shallow basin half a 

 mile across ; there the snow had collected under the 

 shelter of the hill, and was so deep and soft that we 

 were obliged to give up the attempt to cross it, and to 

 content ourselves with ascending a nearer and smaller 

 hill which is called the Dean. This hill, which rises 

 to a height of 1,400 feet above the sea-level, is sepa- 

 rated from Mount Pullen by a deep ravine which has 

 all the appearance of a gigantic railway cutting. The 

 impression left on our minds was that a glacier must 

 have been the agent that had carved out the gap. The 

 summit of the Dean hill is strewed with granitic 

 boulders and erratics of various kinds, the mountain 

 itself being composed of dark indurated slates, thrown 

 up at an almost vertical angle, the strike being east and 

 west. The view from its summit was very fine ; the 

 pyramid-shaped hills of the United States Eange to the 

 north-west having every slope sharply defined against 

 a back-ground of clear sky. 



6 2bth. — Temperature minus 37°, and calm weather. 

 The sun is only ten degrees high at noon, and yet the 

 glare was intense when walking towards it over the 

 snow. It afforded much relief to our eyes to occasion- 

 ally face about and gaze at one's own shadow, the 

 only dark object to be seen. The accumulation of ice 

 about our eye-lashes and on the fur caps acts as a 

 number of prisms, refracting the light into the eyes. 



4 There are now many ptarmigan tracks in those 

 parts of the ravines where the scanty vegetation has 

 been here and there exposed by the winds ; we meet 

 witli tracks of hares occasionally, but it is evident that 



t2 



v 



