206 THE UPPER YUKON 



their backs, we returned to camp, which we 

 reached at dark. 



It is now in order to say something about 

 the glacier that we were so close to, and in 

 which two rivers had their source, the waters 

 of one reaching the ocean via the Yukon River 

 and Behring Sea, and the other by way of the 

 interior waterway in the Pacific Ocean. 



This glacier is really an extension of Mount 

 St. Elias, although that famous mountain is 

 eighty miles away. Formerly the glacier was 

 higher than the mountains surrounding it. 

 Now it has shrunken so much by the melting 

 of the ice that it makes a deep and broad gap, 

 through which the warm south winds rush 

 with immense force, carrying clouds of dust, 

 which finally settles in the water of the river 

 and sinks to the bottom, forming quicksands 

 or bars. Some of it is carried by the wind up 

 the mountain sides among the timber, and 

 along the banks of the stream. The pressure 

 of the glacial water is so great that it is forced 

 up from the bottom of the glacier like a sy- 

 phon. The current of water divides in two, 

 and as before stated two rivers are thus 

 created. 



Dr. Dawson states that the ice flow, during 

 the period of the great Cordillevan Glacier 



