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JOHN BURROUGHS 



from the front is usually a torrent of shattered ice which 

 pours down, simulating water, but at longer intervals enor- 

 mous solid masses like rocks, topple and plunge. It is 

 then that the great blue bergs rise up from below — born 

 of the depths. The enormous pressure to which their 

 particles have been subjected for many centuries seems 

 to have intensified their color. They have a pristine, ele- 

 mental look. Their crystals have not seen the light since 

 they fell in snowflakes back amid the mountains genera- 

 tions ago. All this time imprisoned, traveling in dark- 



ing the val- 



LOOKING DOWN ON FRONT OF MUIR GLACIER 

 FROM EAST SIDE. 



leys, pol- 

 ishing the 

 rocks,under 

 a weight as 

 of m o u n- 

 tains, till at 

 last their 

 deliverance 

 comes with 

 crash and 

 roar and 

 they are once more free to career in the air and light as 

 dew or rain or cloud, and then again to be drawn into 

 that cycle of transformation and caught and bound once 

 more in glacier chains for another century. 



We lingered by the Muir and in adjacent waters five or 

 six days, sending out botanical, zoological, and glacial ex- 

 peditions in various directions; yes, and one hunting 

 party to stir up the bears in Howling Valley. Howling 

 Valley, so named by Muir, is a sort of coat tail pocket 

 of the great glacier. It lies twenty or more miles from 

 the front, behind the mountains. The hunters started off 

 eagerly on the first afternoon of our arrival, with packers 



