

SHOWING MAN S INSIGNIFICANCE 



the best writers would hesitate before 

 the impotence of words to tell of what 

 the eye beholds there. 



The peak which pierces the snow- 

 field above is an arete. Over a rock 

 fifty feet high, the concealing ice has 

 been forced onward and downward un- 

 til it has formed an ice-cave where ex- 

 quisite, aqua-marine lights play hour 

 after hour. Observe the figure of the 

 man who stands at the foot of the 

 chasm, half serac and half crevasse, 

 which seams the descending ice-slope 

 behind him. 



We lived there a fortnight, getting 

 acquainted with the ice-river. First, 

 we moved the camera over logs, 

 through brush and amongst a chaos of 

 huge, loose rocks ; and finally waded 

 through glacier-water to the very foot 

 of the solid river. The resulting picture 

 with its dim outlines of the men inside 



Photographed by Dan Beard 



the Cave, shows with admirable fidelity 

 of detail, the results of ice-motion, pres- 

 sure, fracture, and the action of sun, 

 wind, and melted water. That cave was 

 an awesome and dangerous place. As 

 we stood at its back and sixty feet from 

 the mouth, we could hear the groaning 

 and protests of the ice-masses as they 

 were being forced along. 



A wider view is also given of the 

 surfaces of the Glacier, showing how 

 the snow gradually sinks and changes 

 into ice. Another picture shows the 

 stream of glacier water — melted ice — 

 flowing through mazes of logs. 



All the illustrations show much of the 

 truth of distance, space, perspective and 

 the power and great size of the Glacier ; 

 but it is repeated that the photographs 

 and the cuts made from them cannot 

 show the constant changes of light and 

 shadow, the brilliancy and color. The 



