FAR AND NEAR 



We found a few old crevasses, many deep depres- 

 sions or valleys, and several little creeks singing along 

 deep down between blue, vitreous walls; also wells 

 of unknown depth and of strange and wonderful 

 beauty. We came upon a moraine that suggested a 

 tumble-down stone wall, quite as straight and uni- 

 form. It soon disappeared beneath the ice, show- 

 ing what a depth of snow had fallen 'upon it since 

 it started upon its slow journey from the distant 

 mountains. We pushed up the gentle slope for sev- 

 eral miles until the snow began to be over our shoes, 

 when we turned back. I had climbed hills all my 

 life, but never before had I walked upon a hill of 

 ice and stopped to drink at springs that were deep 

 crystal goblets. 



The waste of the Morse Glacier is carried off by 

 two large, turbid streams that rush from beneath it, 

 and on their way to the inlet uncover a portion of a 

 buried forest. About this buried forest our doctors 

 did not agree. The timber, mostly spruce, was yet 

 hard and sound, a fact that might almost bring the 

 event within the century. A sheet of gravel nearly 

 two hundred feet thick seems to have been depos- 

 ited upon it suddenly. The trees, so far as exposed, 

 had all been broken off ten or twelve feet from the 

 ground, by some force coming from the west. In 

 some places the original forest floor was laid bare by 

 the water ; the black vegetable mould and decayed 

 moss had a fresh, undisturbed look. Evidently no 

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