SNOWSLIDES 197 



Most limbs were torn off from thirty to fifty 

 feet above the earth. So I suppose the slide 

 had been about thirty feet deep. Jamming in 

 places had caused it to deepen or to throw up 

 ice, rocks, or tree trunks into the air; these 

 would smash things far above the top of the 

 rushing slide. 



The thing must have been several hundred feet 

 long. Its wreckage at the bottom contained 

 firewood enough to supply a village for a year. 

 The cabin was in the vast mass of wreckage 

 thrown together in fierce confusion in the bot- 

 tom of the canon; also the prospector's winter 

 supplies and my snowshoes. But I had seen a 

 big slide run. 



