144 I. C. Russell — Expedition to Mount St. Ellas. 



very precipitous peaks may be climbed with ease. In case the 

 ascent between the two crests is not practicable, the even snow- 

 slope itself affords a sure footing for one used to mountain 

 climbing. 



After establishing Camp 15, Lindsley and Stamy returned to 

 one of the lower camps for additional supplies, while Kerr and I 

 explored a way for farther advance. 



Our camp occupied a commanding situation. From the end 

 of the ridge on which it was located there was a splendid view of 

 glaciers and mountains to the eastward. The illustration forming 

 plate 18 is from a photograph taken from that station. Toward 

 the north, and only a few miles away, rose the bare, rugged slope 

 of Mount Malaspina. In a wild, high-grade gorge on its western 

 side, a glacier, all pinnacles and crevasses, tumbles down into 

 the broad white j^lain below. On account of its splendid ice- 

 fall this was named the Cascade glacier. Beyond the white plain, 

 stretching eastward for fifteen or twenty miles, there rise the 

 foothills of Mount Cook. Farther south, the rugged, angular 

 summits of the Hitchcock range are in full view, and toward the 

 north stands Mount Irving,^ which rivals even Mount Cook in the 

 symmetrical proportions of its snow-covered slopes. 



The surface of the vast snow-plain near at hand is gashed by 

 many gaping fissures, but the distance is so great that these 

 minor details disappear in a general view. Looking clowai over 

 the snow, one may see the crevasses as in a diagram. They look 

 as if the white surface had been gashed with a sharp knife, and 

 then stretched in such a way as to oj^en the cuts. That the snow 

 of the neves may be stretched, at least to a limited extent, is 

 shown by the character of these fissures. The crevasses are 

 widest in the center and come to a point at their curving ex- 

 tremities. Two crevasses frequently overlap at their ends and 

 leave a sliver of ice stretching across diagonally between them. 

 It is by means of these diagonal bridges that one is enabled to 

 thread his way through the crevasses. 



On returning to camp in the evening, weary with a hard day's 

 climb, a never-failing source of delight was found in the match- 

 less winter landscape to the eastward. The evenings following 

 days of uninterrupted sunshii:i.e were especially delightful. The 

 blue shadows of the western peaks creeping across the shining 

 surface were nearly as sharp in outline as the peaks that cast 



* Named in honor of Professor Roland Duer Irving, U. S. geologist. 



