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JOHN BURROUGHS 



The grade up the mountain is in places over 200 feet to 

 the mile and in making the ascent the train climbs about 

 2,900 feet. After the road leaves Skagway River its course 

 is along the face of precipitous granite peaks and domes, 

 with long loops around the heads of gorges and chasms; 

 occasionally on trestles over yawning gulfs, but for the 

 most part on a shelf of rock blasted out of the side of the 



LOOKING BACK AT HEAD OF LYNN CANAL FROM WHITE PASS RAILROAD. 



mountain. The train stopped from time to time and al- 

 lowed us to walk ahead and come face to face with the 

 scene. The terrible and the sublime were on every hand. 

 It was as appalling to look up as to look down; chaos and 

 death below us, impending avalanches of hanging rocks 

 above us. How elemental and cataclysmal it all looked! 

 I felt as if I were seeing for the first time the real granite 

 ribs of the earth; they had been cut into and slivered and 

 they were real and solid. All I had seen before were but 

 scales and warts on the surface by comparison; here 



