82 /. C. Bassell— Expedition to Mount St. Elias. 



through the driftiiTrg mist, was novel and enjoyable in spite of 

 discomforts due to the rain. We rejoiced at the thought that 

 we were nearing the place where the actual labors of the expedi- 

 tion would begin ; we were approaching the unknown;' visions 

 of unexplored regions filled with new wonders occupied our 

 fancies, and made us eager to press on. 



About noon on the first day we pitched our tents on a strip of 

 shingle skirting the shore of the mainland to the east of Knight 

 island. The Pin,ta\s boats spread their white wings and sailed 

 away to the southward before a freshening wind, and our last 

 connection with civilization was broken. As one of the frontiers- 

 men of our party remarked, we Avere " at home once more." It 

 may appear strange to some that any one could apply such a 

 term to a camp on the wild shore of an unexplored country ; but 

 the Bohemian spirit is so strong in some breasts, and the restraint 

 of civilization so irksome, that the homing instinct is reversed 

 and leads irresistibly to the wilderness and to the silent moun- 

 tain tops. 



The morning after arriving at our first camp, Kerr, Christie, 

 and Hendriksen, with all the camp hands except two. went on 

 with the canoes, and in a few hours reached the entrance of Dis- 

 enchantment bay. They found a camping place about twelve 

 miles ahead, on a narrow strip of shingle beneath the precipices 

 of Point Esperanza, and there established our second camp. 



My necessary delay at Camp 1 was utilized, so far as possible, 

 in learning what I could concerning the adjacent country, and 

 in making a beginning in the study of its geology. Our camp 

 was at the immediate base of the mountains, and on the north- 

 eastern side of the wide plateau l^ordering the continent. The 

 plateau stretches southeastward for twenty or thirty miles, and 

 is low and heavily forested. The eastern shore of the bay near 

 our first camp is formed of bluffs about 150 feet high, which 

 have been eaten back by the waves so as to expose fine sections 

 of the strata of sand, gravel and bowlders of which the plateau 

 is composed. All the lowlands bordering the mountains have, 

 apparently, a common histor}^, and doubtless owe their origin 

 principally to the deposition of debris brought from the moun- 

 tains by former glaciers. When this material was deposited, or 

 soon afterward, the land Avas depressed about 150 feet lower 

 than at present, as is shown by a terrace cut along the base of 

 the mountains at that elevation. The steep mountain face ex- 



