FAR AND NEAR 



strike up through, the party resumed its march. 

 Very soon they got into snow, which became deeper 

 and deeper as they proceeded. Hidden crevasses 

 made it necessary to rope themselves together, the 

 new hunting-shoes pinched and rubbed, the packs 

 grew heavy, the snow grew deeper, the miles grew 

 longer, and there might not be any bears in HowUng 

 Valley after all, — Muir's imagination may have 

 done all the howling, — so, after due deliberation by 

 all hands, it was voted to turn back. 



It is much easier in Alaska to bag a glacier than 

 a bear; hence our glacial party, made up of John 

 Muir, Gilbert, and Palache, who set out to explore 

 the head of Glacier Bay, was more successful than 

 the hunters. They found more glaciers than they 

 were looking for. One large glacier of twenty years 

 ago had now become two, not by increasing but 

 by diminishing; the main trunk had disappeared, 

 leaving the two branches in separate valleys. All the 

 glaciers of this bay, four or five in number, were 

 found to have retreated many hundred feet since 

 Muir's first^visit, two decades earlier. The explorers 

 were absent from the ship three days on a cruise 

 attended with no little peril. 



During the same time an ornithological and bo- 

 tanical party of six or eight men was in camp on 

 Gustavus Peninsula, a long, low, wooded stretch of 

 land twenty miles below Muir Glacier. Here over 

 forty species of birds, including sea birds, were 

 44 



