December 13, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



795 



formed its boundary. Then suddenly there 

 burst upon us one of the most tremendous 

 mountain scenes any of the party had ever 

 had the good fortune to witness. Sheer 

 down below was a cliff which repeated ex- 

 periments with falling rocks showed to be 

 more than sixteen hundred feet of perpen- 

 dicular precipice. From the base of this 

 cliff the talus sloped down sharply to the 

 bottom of the valley no less than three 

 thousand feet below. Across the valley in 

 front of us towered a mountain ridge which 

 we called the Bear's Teeth. It rose three 

 thousand feet above us as the valley dropped 

 below. Around the northern end of the 

 ridge on which we stood swept the glacier 

 narrowed into a true ice river. As it broke 

 over the cliff to plunge into the valley it 

 was fractured with crevasses of much greater 

 size than those mentioned before. The 

 largest was about twenty feet across and 

 into it plunged one of the surface streams 

 which came down the glacier. Below in 

 the valley lay a succession of lakes. The 

 first of so deep and dark a blue that with- 

 out hesitation we called it Emerald Lake. 

 The second, opposite the foot of the glacier, 

 was of that peculiar milkiness thought to be 

 alwa3rs indicative of a glacier. For this 

 Olacier Lake seemed the one appropriate 

 name. The moraine at the foot of the 

 glacier was evidently almost entirely ground 

 moraine. There were very few large rocks 

 lying in a mass of finely divided gray de- 

 tritus . Across this rushed the stream which 

 came from the foot of the glacier. Where 

 the stream entered the lake the silt carried 

 by it was borne out into the waters like the 

 smoke from a cannon's mouth. In the time 

 at our command it was not possible to de- 

 scend the nlountain to the level of the lakes, 

 but they seemed to be of great depth with 

 sandy and shingly beaches and closely sur- 

 rounded on all sides by the forests of fir 

 and hemlock. 



From the point of our first observations 



of the valley we proceeded northward, cross- 

 ing the ice river at the point where it left 

 the main amphitheater to descend into the 

 valley. At each point of vantage photo- 

 graphs were taken by Mr. Shepard. The 

 writer and one guide descended along the 

 northern margin of the ice about two thou- 

 sand feet, finding some glacial scorings of 

 interest, and under one edge several caves 

 of considerable size. These were not of 

 sufficient height to stand upright in, but ex- 

 tended for forty or fifty feet under the ice. 

 The roof of clear blue ice was carved into 

 low arches through which the light came, 

 subdued into a wonderfully soft and grate- 

 ful tone after the glare of the snow fields. 



From this vicinity we had a most satis- 

 factory view of the valley. The first por- 

 tion of it passing athwart the foot of the 

 glacier had a direction almost due north 

 and south. Turning then to the east, it 

 extended some eight or ten miles, flanked 

 on either side by lofty mountains. Two 

 of these particularly attracted attention. 

 The dip of the strata in all this region, so 

 far as observed, is toward the northwest. 

 They consist of gray and yellowish shales 

 and brilliant red slates. The two moun- 

 tains in question have at their summits the 

 outcroppings of two strata of red slates. 

 This flaming head gear suggested the names 

 North and South Red Mountain. Extend- 

 ing toward them were two more of the val- 

 ley lakes, one of which, from its position, 

 we called Centre Lake, and the other, six 

 miles in length by three-fourths of a mile 

 wide, seemed to deserve the name Long 

 Lake. Still beyond Long Lake, its farther 

 shore hidden by the foot of South Eed 

 Mountain, the fifth lake gleamed, a vivid 

 contrast to the vermilion peaks on either 

 hand. For the valley, as a whole, I have 

 thus far sought vainly to learn the Indian 

 equivalent for ' The Valley of the Five 

 Lakes,' hoping that it might be something 

 which would be musical and usable. From 



