IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 



junct to their big mine at Kennecott, 200 miles 

 up from Cordova. Therefore its roadbed is not 

 . built on a straight-edge plane of smoothness, nor 

 do its trains maintain a Lightning Express 

 standard of speed. On the contrary, it juggles 

 along just like many other mixed freight moun- 

 tain railroad trains in the States, and if during 

 the day's trip (it doesn't have a night schedule) 

 it rolls up twelve miles per hour it is keeping up 

 to about what is expected of it. 



As we threaded our tortuous way up the canon 

 of the Copper River, our attention was drawn to 

 a bar or bench which followed the river along the 

 opposite bank for several miles. 



We noticed that it was verdure-clad and that 

 it bore a fair crop of timber; and yet it was 

 nothing more nor less than glacial in its formation, 

 for, except for the upper few feet covering its sur- 

 face, it was solid ice. We waited a little longer, 

 and as we traveled parallel with the moraine 

 (for such it was), we saw a perpendicular cut in 

 the edge of the bar. All the white formation 

 below the top or covering edge was pure ice. 

 That ice extended all along the bench under the 

 soil, only that it was covered where we first 

 looked at it; but here the water had washed into 

 the "bench," exposing the ice that lay concealed 

 elsewhere along its path. 



An Indian village was passed, being composed 

 of a few crude huts, some open boats in the river 

 and a half dozen or more half-naked and very 



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