PLOVER BAY I 35 



cadence in accordance with conditions of snowfall, tem- 

 perature and so on, like those of lower latitudes. When 

 the main glacier which filled the fiord was in its prime it 

 was about thirty miles long and five to six wide, with five 

 main tributaries, which, as the trunk melted, became 

 separate glaciers, and these melting in turn left many 

 smaller tributaries ranging from less than a mile to 

 several miles in length. These, also, as far as I have 

 seen, have vanished, though possibly some wasting rem- 

 nants may still exist in the snowiest recesses of the 

 mountains. 



From Port Clarence we turned back, homeward bound 

 and Heaven-favored, for all the mountains between Prince 

 William Sound and Cross Sound, veiled in clouds on the 

 way up, were now revealed to us in all their glory. The 

 sky was pure azure, the sea calm, and the mountains in 

 their robes of ice and light towered in awful majesty. 



In passing the Malaspina Glacier we ran in for a nearer 

 view of the ice bluffs at Icy Cape, then skirted the moraine- 

 and forest-covered border, gaining glorious views of the 

 immense ice-field and its tributaries pouring in from their 

 sublime sun-beaten fountains. 



The sail down the coast from St. Elias along the mag- 

 nificent Fairweather Range, when every mountain stood 

 transfigured in divine light, was the crowning grace and 

 glory of the trip and must be immortal in the remem- 

 brance of every soul of us. 



