January 1, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



21 



wild pansies, — purple, yellow, cream- white, and 

 variegated, — fringed pinks, spirea, blue gentians, 

 wild hollyhocks, daisies, forget-me-nots, alpine 

 roses, purple Altai lilies, and scores of flowers 

 that I had never before seen, many of them 

 extremely brilliant, large, and showy. Of plants 

 and fruits, — which with us are domesticated, but 

 which in the Altai grow wild, — I noticed rhubarb, 

 celery, currants (red and black), gooseberries, rasp- 

 berries, strawberries and blackberries, wild cher- 

 ries, crab-apples, and wild apricots or peaches. 

 Most of the berries were ripe or nearly so ; and the 

 wild currants, in particular, were as large and 

 abundant as in an American garden. The scenery 

 was extremely wild and grand, surpassing at 

 times any thing that I saw in the Caucasus. 



On Saturday, Aug. 1, we reached the foot of 

 the last great ridge or watershed which separated 

 us from the main chain of the Katoonski Alps. 

 Sunday morning we climbed about 2,000 feet to 

 the summit of the last ridge, and looked over into 

 the wild valley of the Katoon, out of which rise 

 the ' Katoonski pillars,' the highest peaks of the 

 Russian Altai. I was prepared for something 

 grand in the way of scenery, because I had 

 already seen those peaks two or three times, at 

 distances varying from 25 to 30 miles ; but the 

 near view from the heights above the Katoon 

 so far surpassed all my anticipations, that I was 

 simply overawed. It was not beautiful, it was not 

 picturesque : it was overwhelming and stupendous. 



The deep, narrow valley or gorge of the Katoon, 

 which lay almost under our feet, was somewhere 

 between 2,000 and 3,000 feet deep. On the other 

 side of it rose far above our heads the wild, 

 mighty chain of the Katoonski Alps, culminating 

 just opposite us in two tremendous snowy peaks, 

 whose height I estimated at 15,000 feet. Colonel 

 Maiyfski, the governor of the district, has since 

 told me that they are believed to be not less than 

 18,000 feet in height. They were white from base 

 to summit, except where the snow was broken by 

 great black precipices, or pierced by sharp, rocky 

 spines and crags. Down the sides of these peaks, 

 from vast fields of neve above, fell enormous gla- 

 ciers, the largest of them descending from the 

 high saddle between the twin summits in a con- 

 tinuous ice-fall of at least 4,000 feet. The glacier 

 on the extreme right had an almost perpendicular 

 ice-fall of twelve or fifteen hundred feet, and the 

 glacier on the extreme left gave birth to a torrent 

 which tumbled about 800 feet with a hoarse roar 

 into the deep, narrow gorge. The latter glacier 

 was longitudinally subdivided by three moraines, 

 which looked, from our point of view, like long, 

 narrow-shaped dumps of furnace-slag or fine coal- 

 dust, but which, when I afterward climbed up on 



them, I found to be composed of black rocks from 

 the size of my head to the size of a house, extend- 

 ing four or five miles, with a width of 300 feet, 

 and a height of from 25 to 75 feet above the gen- 

 eral level of the glacier. The extreme summits 

 of the two highest peaks were more than half 

 the time hidden in clouds ; but that rather added 

 to, than detracted from, the wild grandeur of the 

 scene, by giving mystery to the origin of the 

 enormous glaciers, which at such times seemed to 

 the imagination to be tumbling down from un- 

 known heights in the sky through masses of roll- 

 ing vapor. All the time there came up to us from 

 the depths of the gorge the hoarse roar of the water- 

 fall, which seemed now and then to be almost lost 

 in the deeper thunder which came from the great 

 glaciers, as masses of ice gave way and settled into 

 new positions in the ice-falls. This thundering 

 of the glaciers continues for nearly a minute at 

 a time, varying in intensity, and resembling occa- 

 sionally the sound of a distant but heavy and rapid 

 cannonade. No movement of the ice in the falls 

 was perceptible to the eyes from the point at which 

 we stood ; but the sullen, rumbling thunder was 

 evidence enough of the mighty force of the agen- 

 cies which were at work before us. 



After looking at the mountains for half an 

 hour, we turned our attention to the valley of the 

 Katoon beneath us, with a view to ascertaining 

 whether it would be possible to get down into it, 

 and reach the foot of the main glacier which gives 

 birth to the Katoon River. Although the descent 

 did look both difficult and dangerous, I was by no 

 means satisfied that it was utterly impracticable. 

 While we were discussing the question, our guide 

 was making a bold and practical attempt to solve 

 it. We could no longer see him from where we 

 stood ; but every now and then a stone or small 

 bowlder, dislodged by his horse's feet, would leap 

 into sight three or four hundred feet below us, 

 and go crashing down the mountain-side, clearing 

 two hundred feet at every bound, and finally 

 dashing itself to pieces against the rocks at the 

 bottom with a noise like a distant rattling dis- 

 charge of musketry. Our guide was evidently 

 making progress. In a few moments he came 

 into sight on a bold rocky buttress about six hun- 

 dred feet below us, and shouted cheerfully, 

 ' Come on ! You could get down here with a 

 telega' (a Russian peasant's cart). Inasmuch as 

 one could hardly look down there without getting 

 dizzy, this was a rather hyperbolical statement of 

 the possibilities of the case. 



We finally reached a very steep but grassy slope, 

 like the side of a Titanic embankment, down which 

 we zigzagged with great discomfort, but without 

 much actual danger, to the bottom of the Katoon 



