EXPLORING KNOX MOUNTAIN 
break sleigh roads over it, while in the 
mountains it makes snowfields and glaciers. 
On every side that day, on summits yet 
higher than ours, and on others lower, 
were glaciers formed of the vast snowfields 
piled up, drifted over crests, and filled into 
the gorges. In the nights, while in the 
miners’ cabin which is 9,000 feet above the 
sea, we had heard the thunderous report 
where some glacier had calved, loosening 
great masses of ice that would slide down 
to lower spaces. 
Standing in our tracks that day we count- 
ed no less than thirty-eight glaciers with 
the naked eye, the farthest not more than ten 
or twelve miles away, while ranges twenty 
and even forty miles away were also the 
home of glaciers, we knew, but they were 
hardly distinguishable even with our field 
glasses. The glaciers form at the lower 
edge of the great snowfields, either down 
some gorge or along the whole face of a 
mountain side. Fromgunder their foot 
flows a stream, largest in the afternoons, 
milky-white from the grinding 
of the ice over the rocks. Huge 
blocks of rock are often carried 
on the top of the ice, which, being 
loosened as the sun thaws the 
obstructions, roll down below, 
making a spice of danger if one 
is near the foot of the glacier. 
At such a time the bombard- 
ment must be closely watched. 
Snowfields were also on every 
side, some scarcely more than 
big drifts, others a mile or two 
across and many feet deep. To 
the north of us was an immense 
one, miles across, over which 
prospectors sometimes passed to 
the rich fields of Silver Creek 
fifteen miles away. Kirkpatrick 
told of coming over that pass 
once, and across the mountain 
top on which we stood, and 
being caught in a driving snow- 
storm, vastly more dangerous in 
such a locality than on the bliz- 
zard-swept plains of Dakota. 
We soon begged that the 
duffle-bag be opened. We could 
find a few dry twigs and these 

217 
with a deal of care and coaxing we soon 
prevailed upon to burn to heat water for 
tea. Our luncheon that day was not of 
light eatables only, such as the thought of 
a picnic suggests, since our purveyor well 
knew the demands that the long climb 
would make, and had brought a most sub- 
stantial dinner, including beef tea, roast 
beef and other good things both appetizing 
and strengthening. Sitting there in the 
warm sunlight of an August day, in the 
clear and bracing air, with hunger intensified 
by the hours of climbing and by the thin, 
pure atmosphere, we were surely to be 
envied. Were not the two women trium- 
phant that they were the first ones ever on 
that crest? To perpetuate that victory our 
host loudly proclaimed that henceforth 
that peak, nameless hitherto, should be 
known as “ Knox Mountain.” 
As we sat devouring our dinner, a long 
pack train, carrying provisions and mate- 
rials to the Black Warrior Mine over a 
pass to the Duncan River slope, slowly 
Lhe snowfall in the Selkirks is something astounding 
