Mounts Augusta and Malaspina. 117 



ing the dark archway below. The lake is extremely irregular in 

 its behavior, and may be filled and emptied several times in a 

 season. The waters are either restrained or flow freely, accord- 

 ing as the tunnel through which they discharge is obstructed or 

 open. The lake is typical of a class. Similar basins may be 

 found about many of the spurs projecting into the Malaspina 

 glacier. 



A little west of the glacier to which I have directed your atten- 

 tion there is a narrow mountain gorge occuj^ied by another 

 glacier, of small size but having all the principal characteristics 

 of even the largest Alpine glaciers of the region. It is less than 

 half a mile in length, has a high grade, and is fed by several 

 lateral branches. Its surface is divided into an ice region below 

 and a neve region above. It has lateral and medial moraines, 

 ice pinnacles, crevasses, and many other details peculiar to 

 glaciers. From its extremity, which is dark with dirt and stones, 

 there flows a stream of turbid water. It is, in fact, a miniature 

 similitude of the ice-streams on the neighboring mountain, some 

 of which are forty or fifty miles in length and many times wider 

 in their narrowest part than the little glacier before us is long. 

 The inore thoroughly we become acquainted with the mountains 

 of southern Alaska the more interesting and more numerous do 

 the Alpine glaciers of the third order become. Already, thou- 

 sands could be enumerated. , 



I will not detain my imaginary companion longer with local 

 details, but turn at once to the objects which will ever be the 

 center of attraction to visitors who may chance to reach this 

 remote island in the ice. Looking far up the Marvine glacier, 

 beyond the tapering pinnacles and rugged peaks about its head, 

 you will .see spires and cathedral-like forms of the purest white 

 projected against the northern sky. They recall at once the 

 ecclesiastic architecture of the Old World ; but instead of being 

 dim and faded by time they seem built of immaculate marble. 

 They have a grandeur and repose seen only in mountains of the 

 first magnitude.. The cathedral to the right, with the long roof- 

 like crest and a tapering spire at its eastern terminus, is Mount 

 Augusta ; its elevation is over 13,000 feet. A little to the west, 

 and equally beautiful but slightly less in elevation, is Mount 

 Malaspina — a Avorthy monument to the unfortunate navigator 

 whose name it bears. These peaks are on the main St. Elias 

 range, but from our jDresent point of view they form only the 



17— Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. Ill, 1891. 



