Ascent of the Marvine Glacier. 123 



first lateral gorge (about a mile from Blossom island), from 

 which flows a secondary glacier, we could look up the bed of the 

 steep ravine to the white precipices beyond, which seemed to 

 descend out of the clouds, and were scarred by avalanches ; but 

 all of the higher peaks were shrouded from view. At noon we 

 passed the mouth of a second and larger gorge, which discharges 

 an important tributary. We then left the border of the glacier 

 and traveled up its center, the crevasses at the embouchures of 

 the tributary stream being too numerous and too wide to be 

 crossed without great difficulty. 



In the center of the Marvine glacier there is a dark medial 

 moraine, composed mainly of debris of gabbro and serpentine, 

 of the same character as the medial moraine on the Hayden 

 glacier, already briefly mentioned. Here, too, we found broad 

 areas covered with sand cones and glacial tables. There are also 

 rushing streams, flowing in channels of ice, which finally plunge 

 into crevasses or in well-like moulins and send back a deep roar 

 from the caverns beneath. The murmurs of running waters, 

 heard on every hand, seem to indicate that the whole glacier is 

 doomed to melt away in a single season. 



Early in the afternoon we reached the junction of the two main 

 branches of the Marvine glacier, and chose the most westerly. 

 We were still traveling over hard blue ice in which the blue and 

 white vein-structure characteristic of glaciers could be plainly 

 distinguished. The borders of the ice-streams were dark with 

 lateral moraines ; but after passing the last great tributary com- 

 ing in from the northeast we reached the upper limit of the 

 glacier proper and came to the lower border of the neve fields, 

 above which there is little surface debris. The glacier there flows 

 over a rugged descent, and is greatly broken by its fall. At first 

 we endeavored to find a passage up the center of the crevassed 

 and pinnacled ice, but soon came to an impassable gulf. Turn- 

 ing toward the right, we traversed a ridge of ice between profound 

 gorges and reached the base of the mountain slope bordering the 

 glacier on the east. Our party was now divided ; Christie and his 

 companion were left searching for, a convenient place to leave the 

 cans of rations they carried, while we, who were to explore the 

 regions above, were endeavoring to find a way up the ice-fall. 

 A shout from our companions beloAV called our attention to the 

 fact that they were unable to reach the border of the glacier, 

 where they had been directed to leave their packs, and that they 



