Travels in Alaska 



CHAPTER I 



PUGET SOUND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 



AFTER eleven years of study and exploration in 

 the Sierra Nevada of California and the moun- 

 tain-ranges of the Great Basin, studying in particular 

 their glaciers, forests, and wild life, above all their 

 ancient glaciers and the influence they exerted in 

 sculpturing the rocks over which they passed with 

 tremendous pressure, making new landscapes, scen- 

 ery, and beauty which so mysteriously influence 

 every human being, and to some extent all life, I was 

 anxious to gain some knowledge of the regions to the 

 northward, about Puget Sound and Alaska. With 

 this grand object in view I left San Francisco in May, 

 1879, on the steamer Dakota, without any definite 

 plan, as with the exception of a few of the Oregon 

 peaks and their forests all the wild north was new 

 to me. 



To the mountaineer a sea voyage is a grand, inspir- 

 ing, restful change. For forests and plains with their 

 flowers and fruits we have new scenery, new life of 

 every sort; water hills and dales in eternal visible 

 motion for rock waves, types of permanence. 



It was curious to note how suddenly the eager 

 countenances of the passengers were darkened as soon 



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