90 /. ('. liusscU — Expedition to Mount .St. Ellas. 



mountains alx)ve, I forced my way for nearly a mile through 

 dense thickets, frequently making wide detours to avoid the 

 kettle holes. At length the vegetation became less dense, and 

 gave place to broad open fields of rocks and dirt, covering the 

 glacier from side to side. This debris was clearly of the nature 

 of a moraine, as the ice could be seen beneath it in numerous 

 crevasses; but no division into marginal or medial moraines 

 could be distinguished. It is really a thin, irregular sheet of 

 comminuted rock, together with angular masses of sandstone 

 and shale, the largest of which are ten or fifteen feet in diameter. 

 When seen from a little distance the debris completely conceals 

 the ice and forms a barren, rugged surface, the picture of desola- 

 tion. 



After traversing this naked area the clear ice in the center of 

 the gorge was reached. All about were wild cliffs, stretching uj) 

 toward the snow-covered peaks al:)Ove ; several cataracts of ice, 

 formed by tributary glaciers descending through rugged, highly 

 inclined channels, were in sight ; while the snow-fields far above 

 gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight, and now and then sent down 

 small avalanches to awaken the echoes of the cliffs and fill the 

 still air with a Babel of tongues. 



Pushing on toward the western border of the glacier, across 

 the barren field of stones, I came at length to the brink of a 

 precipice of dirty ice more than a hundred feet high, at the foot 

 of which flowed a swift stream of turbid water. A few hundred 

 yards below, this stream suddenly disappeared beneath an arch- 

 way formed by the end of a glacial tunnel, and its further course 

 was lost to view. It was a strange sight to see a swift, foaming 

 river burst from beneath overhanging ice-cliffs, roar along over a 

 bowlder-covered bed, and then plunge into the mouth of a cavern, 

 leaving no trace of its lower course except a dull,- heavy rum- 

 bling far down below the icy surface. A still grander example 

 of these glacial streams, observed a few days later, is described 

 on another page. 



The bank of the gulf ojiposite the point at which I first reached 

 it is formed by a steep mouiitain-side supporting a dense growth 

 of vegetation. Here and there, however, streams of water plunge 

 down the slope, making a chain of foaming cascades, and open- 

 ing the way through the vegetation. It seemed practicable to 

 traverse one of these stream beds without great difficulty, and 

 thus to reach the plateau which I knew, from a more distant 

 view, to exist above. 



