' ' ran ' ' — more ~ correctly, plunged — by me 

 down a frightful slope. Everything before it 

 was overwhelmed and swept down. At the bot- 

 tom of the slope it leaped in fierce confusion 

 from the top of a precipice down into a canon. 



For years this snowy mass had accumulated 

 upon the heights. It was one of the "eternal 

 snows" that showed in summer to people far 

 below and far away. A century of winters had 

 contributed snows to its pile. A white hill it was 

 in the upper slope of a gulch, where it clung, 

 pierced and anchored by granite pinnacles. 

 Its icy base, like poured molten lead, had cov- 

 ered and filled all the inequalities of the founda- 

 tion upon which it rested. Time and its tools, 

 together with its own height and weight, at last 

 combined to release it to the clutch and eternal 

 pull of gravity. The expanding, shearing, break- 

 ing force of forming ice, the constant cutting of 

 emery-edged running water, and the under- 

 mining thaw of spring sent thundering down- 

 ward with ten thousand varying echoes a half- 

 million tons of snow, ice, and stones. 



Head-on the vast mass came exploding to- 



95 



