THE GLACIER LAKES 123 



wide. Here, on August 25, 1873, 1 found a charming 

 company of flowers, not pinched, crouching dwarfs, 

 scarce able to look up, but warm and juicy, stand 

 ing erect in rich cheery color and bloom. On a 

 narrow strip of shingle, close to the water's edge, 

 there were a few tufts of carex gone to seed ; and a 

 little way back up the rocky bank at the foot of a 

 crumbling wall so inclined as to absorb and radiate 

 as well as reflect a considerable quantity of sun-heat, 

 was the garden, containing a thrifty thicket of 

 Cowania covered with large yellow flowers ; several 

 bushes of the alpine ribes with berries nearly ripe 

 and wildly acid ; a few handsome grasses belonging 

 to two distinct species, and one goldenrod; a few 

 hairy lupines and radiant spragueas, whose blue and 

 rose-colored flowers were set off to fine advantage 

 amid green carices ; and along a narrow seam in the 

 very warmest angle of the wall a perfectly gorgeous 

 fringe of Epilobium obcor datum with flowers an inch 

 wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and 

 colored as royal a purple as ever was worn by any 

 high-bred plant of the tropics ; and best of all, and 

 greatest of all, a noble thistle in full bloom, stand 

 ing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, 

 and thrusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if 

 growing on a Scottish brae. All this brave warm 

 bloom among the raw stones, right in the face of 

 the onlooking glaciers. 



As far as I have been able to find out, these upper 

 lakes are snow-buried in winter to a depth of about 

 thirty-five or forty feet, and those most exposed to 

 avalanches, to a depth of even a hundred feet or 

 more. These last are, of course, nearly lost to the 



