182 I. a BusselJ—Expedifion to Moimt St. Elias. 



sand feet long. Broader g-ulfs are seldom formed unless the 

 slope has an inclination of 15° or 20°. 



The grandest crevasses are in the higher portions of the neve, 

 and occur especially on the borders of the great amphitheatres. 

 In such situations the crevasses are usually fewer in number 

 but are of greater size than in equal areas lower down. A length 

 of three or four thousand feet and a breadth of fifty feet or more 

 is not uncommon. The finest and most characteristic glacial 

 scenery is found among these great canon-like breaks. Stand- 

 ing on the border of one of the gulfs, as near the brink as one 

 cares to venture, their full depth cannot usually be seen. In 

 some instances they are partially filled with water of the deepest 

 blue, in Avhich the ice-walls are reflected with such wonderful 

 distinctness that it is impossible to tell where the ice ends and 

 its counterfeit begins. The walls of the crevasses are most fre- 

 quently sheer cliffs of stratified ice, with occasional ornamenta- 

 tions, formed of ice-crystals or a pendent icicle. • After a storm 

 they are frequently decorated in the most beautiful manner with 

 fretwork and cornice of snow. The bridges spanning the cre- 

 vasses are usually diagonal slivers of ice left where the clefts 

 overlap ; but at times, especially in the case of the larger cre- 

 vasses, there are true arches resembling the Natural Bridge of 

 Virginia, but on a larger scale, spanning the blue caiions and 

 adding greatly to their strange, fairy -like beauty. The most 

 striking feature of these cracks is their wonderful color. All 

 tints, from the pure white of their crystal lips down to the deep- 

 est blue of their innermost recesses, are revealed in each gash 

 and rent in the hardened snow. 



Above the snow-line all of the mountain tops that are not pre- 

 cipitous are heavily loaded with snow. Where the snow breaks 

 ofi' at the verge of a precipice and descends in avalanches a depth 

 of more than a hundred feet is frequently revealed, but in the 

 valleys and amphitheatres the snow has far greater thickness. 

 Pinnacles and crests of rock, rising through the ic}^ covering, 

 indicate that the thickness of the neve must be many hundreds 

 of feet. 



There are no evidences of former glaciation on the mountain 

 crests Avhich project above the neve fields. There are no polished 

 and striated rock surfaces or glaciated domes to indicate that the 

 mountains were ever covered bv a general capping of ice, as has 

 been postulated for similar mountains elsewhere. AMien the 



