THROUGH WONDERLAND. 
87 
that of Pentelicus and Carrara, we saw the full front of the great Muir Glacier, 
where it dips down and breaks into the sea. At the first breathless glance at 
that glorious ice-world, all fancies and dreams were surpassed : the marvelous 
beauty of those shining, silvery pinnacles and spires, the deep blue buttresses, 
the arches and aisles of that fretted front, struck one with awe. In all Switzer¬ 
land there is nothing comparable to these Alaskan glaciers, where the frozen 
wastes rise straight from the sea, and a steamer can go up within an eighth of a 
mile, and cruise beside them. Add to the picture of high mountains and snowy 
glaciers a sapphire bay scattered over with glittering little icebergs, and nature 
can supply nothing more to stir one’s soul, to rouse the fancy and imagination, 
and enchant the senses. The vastness of this Muir Glacier is enough alone to 
overpower one with a sense of the might and strength of these forces of nature. 
Dry figures can give one little idea of the great, desolate stretches of gray ice 
and snow that slope out of sight behind the jutting mountains, and the tumbled 
and broken front forced down to and into the sea. Although not half of the 
glacier has been explored, it is said to extend back 40 miles. 
“What we could know accurately was, that the front of the glacier was two 
miles across, and that the ice-wall rose 500 and 1,000 feet from the water. The 
lead cast at the point nearest to the icy front gave eighty fathoms, or 240 feet, 
of water; and, in the midst of those deep soundings, icebergs filled with 
boulders lay grounded with forty feet of their summits visible above water. 
At very low tide, there is a continual crash of falling ice ; and, for the half-day 
we spent beside this glacier, there was a roar as of artillery every few minutes, 
when tons of ice would go thundering down into the water. After the prosaic 
matter of lunch had been settled, and we had watched the practical-minded 
steward order his men down on the iceberg to cut off a week’s supply with their 
axes, we embarked in the life-boats, and landed in a ravine beside the glacier. 
* * * We wandered at will over the seamed and ragged surface, 
the ice cracked under our feet with a pleasant mid-winter sound, and the wind 
blew keenly from over-those hundreds of miles of glacier fields; but there were 
the gurgle and hollow roar of the wafer heard in every deep crevasse, and 
trickling streams spread a silver network in the sunshine. Reluctantly we 
obeyed the steamer’s whistle, and started back to the boats. 
“A magnificent sunset flooded the sky that night, and filled every icy ravine 
with rose and orange lights. At the last view of the glacier, as we steamed 
away from it, the whole brow was glorified and transfigured with the fires of 
sunset ; the blue and silvery pinnacles, the white and shining front floating 
dreamlike on a roseate and amber sea, and the range and circle of dull violet 
mountains lighting their glowing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and 
gold.” 1 ’ -.. ■■ -■... 
Since the above was written, in July, 1883, Glacier Bay has been one of the 
constant visiting points of the excursion steamer, and the experience of two or 
three years has shown the company how to exhibit this great panorama of 
nature to its patrons to the best advantage, and one will now be astonished at 
