Our next advance-camp, established a few days later, was at Terrace point, as we called the extreme end of the mountain spur separating the Lucia and Atrevida glaciers. These ice-streams were formerly much higher than now, and when at their flood formed terraces along the mountain side, which remain distinctly visible to the present day. The space between the two glaciers at the southern end of the mountain spur became filled with bowlders and stones carried down on the side of the ice-streams, and, as the glaciers contracted, added a tapering point to the mountain. Between the present surface of the ice and the highest terrace left at some former time there are many ridges, sloping down stream, which record minor changes in the fluctuation of the ice. A portion of one of these terraces is seen to the left in plate 10.
Wall of ice
Wall of ice
Terrace point, like all the lower portions of the mountain spurs extending southward from the main range, is densely clothed with vegetation, and during the short summers is a paradise of flowers. Our tent was pitched on a low terrace just beyond the border of the ice. The steep bluff rising to an elevation of some 200 feet on the east of our camp was formed by glacial ice buried beneath an absolutely barren covering of stones and dirt. On the west the ascent was still more precipitous, but the slope from base to summit was one mass of gorgeous flowers.
Atrevida Glacier
Atrevida Glacier
Kerr and myself made several excursions from the camp at Terrace point, and explored the country ahead to the next mountain spur for the purpose of selecting a site for another advance-camp. In the meantime the men were busy in bringing up supplies.
Our reconnoissance westward took us across the Lucia glacier to the mouth of a deep, transverse gorge in the next mountain spur. The congeries of low peaks and knobs south of this pass we named theFloral hills, on account of the luxuriance of the vegetation covering them; and the saddle separating them from the mountains to the north was calledFloral pass.
In crossing the Lucia glacier we experienced the usual difficulties met with on the débris-covered ice-field of Alaska. The way was exceedingly rough, on account of the ridges and valleys on the ice, and on account of the angular condition of the débris resting upon it. Many of the ridges could not conveniently be climbed, owing to the uncertain footing afforded by the angularstones resting on the slippery slope beneath. Fortunately, the crevasses were mostly filled with stones fallen from the sides, so that the danger from open fissures, which has usually to be guarded against in glacial excursions, was obviated; yet, as is usually the case when crevasses become filled with débris, the melting of the adjacent surfaces had caused them to stand in relief and form ridges of loose stones, which were exceedingly troublesome to the traveler.
Ice tunnel
Ice tunnel
Near the western side of the Lucia glacier, between Terrace point and Floral pass, there is a huge rounded dome of sandstone rising boldly out of the ice. This corresponds to the "nunataks" of the Greenland ice-fields, and was covered by ice when the glaciation was more intense than at present. On the northern side of the island the ice is forced high up on its flanks, and is deeply covered with moraines; but on the southwestern side its base is low and skirted by a sand plain deposited in a valley formerly occupied by a lake. The melting of the glacier has, in fact, progressed so far that the dome of rock is free from ice on its southern side, and is connected with the border of the valley toward the west by the sand plain. This plain is composed of gravel and sand deposited by streams which at times became dammed lower down and expanded into a lake. Sunken areas and holes over portions of the lake bottom show that it rests, in part at least, upon a bed of ice.
Lake bed delta
Lake bed delta
The most novel and interesting feature in the Lucia glacier is a glacial river which bursts from beneath a high archway of ice just at the eastern base of the nunatak mentioned above, and flows for about a mile and a half through a channel excavated in the ice, to then enter the mouth of another tunnel and become lost to view. An illustration of this strange river and of the mouth of the tunnel in the débris-covered ice into which it rolls, reproduced from a photograph by a mechanical process, is given on plate 14, and another view of the mouth of the same tunnel is presented in the succeeding plate. This is the finest example of a glacial river that it has ever been my good fortune to examine.
Lucia Glacier river
Lucia Glacier river
The stream is swift, and its waters are brown and heavy with sediment. Its breadth is about 150 feet. For the greater part of its way, where open to sunlight, it flows between banks of ice and over an icy floor. Fragments of its banks, and portions ofthe sides and roof of the tunnel from which it emerges, are swept along by the swift current, or stranded here and there in midstream. The sand plain already mentioned borders the river for a portion of its course, and is flooded when the lower tunnel is obstructed.
Glacial tunnel
Glacial tunnel
The archway under which the stream disappears is about fifty feet high, and the tunnel retains its dimensions as far as one can see by looking in at its mouth. Where the stream emerges is unknown; but the emergence could no doubt be discovered by examining the border of the glacier some miles southward. No explorer has yet been bold enough to enter the tunnel and drift through with the stream, although this could possibly be done without great danger. The greatest risk in such an undertaking would be from falling blocks of ice. While I stood near the mouth of the tunnel there came a roar from the dark cavern within, reverberating like the explosion of a heavy blast in the chambers of a mine, that undoubtedly marked the fall of an ice mass from the arched roof. The course of the stream below the mouth of the tunnel may be traced for some distance by scarps in the ice above, formed by the settling of the roof. Some of these may be traced in the illustrations. When the roof of the tunnel collapses so completely as to obstruct the passage, a lake is formed above the tunnel, and when the obstruction is removed the streams draining the glacier are flooded.
At the mouth of the tunnel there are always confused noises and rhythmic vibrations to be heard in the dark recesses within. The air is filled with pulsations like deep organ notes. It takes but little imagination to transform these strange sounds into the voices and songs of the mythical inhabitants of the nether regions.
Toward the right of the tunnel, as shown on plate 14, there appears a portion of the former river bed, now abandoned, owing to the cutting across of a bend in the stream. The floor of this old channel is mostly of clear, white ice, and has a peculiar, hummocky appearance, which indicates the direction of the current that once flowed over it. A portion of the bed is covered with sand and gravel, and along its border are gravel terraces resting on ice. These occurrences illustrate the fact that rivers flowing through channels of ice are governed by the same general laws as the more familiar surface streams.
After examining this glacial river, during our first excursion on the Lucia glacier, we reached its western banks by crossingabove the upper archway. Traversing the sand plain to the westward, we came to another stream of nearly equal interest, flowing along the western margin of the glacier, past the end of the deep gorge called Floral pass. A small creek, flowing down the pass, joins the stream and skirts the glacier just below the mouth of a wild gorge on the side of the main valley. This stream once flowed along the border of the Lucia glacier when it was much higher than now, and began the excavation of a channel in the rock, which was retained after the surface of the glacier was lowered by melting. It still flows in a rock-cut channel for about a mile before descending to the border of the glacier as it exists at present. The geologist will see at once that this is a peculiar example of superimposed drainage. The gorge cut by the stream is a deep narrow trench with rough angular cliffs on either side, and is a good example of a water-cut cañon. When the Lucia glacier melts away and leaves the broad-bottomed valley clear of ice, the deep narrow gorge on its western side, running parallel with its longer axes, but a thousand feet or more above its bottom, will remain as one of the evidences of a former ice invasion.
During our reconnoissance we turned back at the margin of the second river, but a day or two later reached the same point with the camp hands and camping outfit, and, placing a rope from bank to bank, effected a crossing. Our next camp was in Floral pass. From there we occupied a topographical station on the summit of the Floral hills, and made another reconnoissance ahead, across theHayden glacier,28to the next mountain spur.
28Named in honor of the late Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, founder of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories.
Floral pass, like so many of the topographical features examined during the recent expedition, has a peculiar history. It is a comparatively low-grade gorge leading directly across the end of an angular mountain range forming one of the spurs of Mount Cook. The position of the pass was determined by an east-and-west fault and by the erosion of soft shales turned up on edge along the line of displacement. At its head it is shut in by the Hayden glacier, which flows past it and forms a wall of ice about two hundred feet high. The water flowing out from beneath the side of the glacier forms a muddy creek, which finds its way over a bowlder-covered bed in the bottom of the gorge to the border of Lucia glacier. Along the sides of the gorge there aremany terraces, which record a complicated history. Evenly stratified clays near its lower end, adjacent to the Lucia glacier, show that it was at one time occupied in part by a lake. Above the lacustral beds there are water-worn deposits, indicating that at a later date the gorge was filled from side to side by moraines and coarse stream deposits several hundred feet thick. These were excavated, and portions were left clinging to the hill-sides, forming the terraces of to-day. Diverse slopes in the terraces suggest that the drainage may at times have been reversed, according as the Lucia or the Hayden glacier was the higher.
The routes between our various camps, scattered along between Yakutat bay and Blossom island, were traversed several times by every member of the party. To traverse the same trail several times with heavy loads, and perhaps in rain and mist, is disheartening work which I will spare the reader the effort of following even in fancy.
From our camp in Floral pass another reconnoissance ahead was made by Mr. Kerr and myself, as already mentioned. These advances, each one of which told us something new, were the most interesting portions of our journey. The little adventures and experiences of each advance were reported and talked over when we rejoined our companions around the camp-fire at night, and were received with gratifying interest by the men.
A view of the Hayden glacier from the Floral hills showed us that it differed from any of the glaciers previously traversed. Its surface, where we planned to cross it, was free of débris except along the margins and also near the center, where we could distinguish a light medial moraine. Farther southward, near the terminus of the glacier, its surface from side to side was buried beneath a sheet of stones and dirt. As in many other instances, the débris on the lower portion of the glacier has been concentrated at the surface, owing to the melting of the ice, so as to form a continuous sheet.
Early one morning, while traveling over the torrent-swept bowlders in the stream-bed on our way up Floral pass, we were a little startled at seeing the head of a bear just visible through the flowers fringing the bank. Before a shot could be fired, he vanished, and remained perfectly quiet among the bushes for several minutes. But a trembling of the branches at length betrayed his presence, and a few minutes later he came out in full view, his yellow-brown coat giving him the appearance of a hugedog. Standing on a rounded mound he looked inquiringly down the valley, with his shaggy side in full view. I fired—but missed my aim. The unsuccessful hunter always has an excuse for his failure; I had never before used the rifle I carried, and the hair-trigger with which it was provided deceived me. Fortunately for the bear, and probably still more fortunately for me, the bullet went far above the mark. The huge beast vanished again, although the vegetation was not dense, and left us wondering how such a large animal could disappear so quickly and so completely in such an open region. On searching for his tracks, we found that he had traversed for a few rods the plant-covered terrace on which he was first discovered, and then escaped up a lateral gorge to a broader terrace above.
Reaching the head of the Floral pass and climbing the hill of débris bordering the Hayden glacier, we came out upon the clear, white ice of the central portion of the ice-stream. The ice was greatly crevassed, but nearly all the gaps in its surface could be crossed by jumping or else by ice-bridges. The most interesting feature presented by the glacier was the way in which it yields itself to the inequality of the rocks over which it flows. Starting on the eastern side, below the entrance to Floral pass, and extending northwestward diagonally across the stream, there is a line of steep descent in the rocks beneath, which causes the ice to be greatly broken. This is not properly an ice-fall, except near the confining walls of the cañon; but it might be called an ice-rapid. The ice bends down over the subglacial scarp with many long breaks, but does not form pinnacles, as in many similar instances where the descent is greater, and true ice cascades occur. The most practicable way for crossing the glacier was to ascend the stream above the line of rapids for some distance, and then follow diagonally down its center, finally veering westward to the opposite bank. By following this course, and making a double curve like the letterS, we could cross the steep descent in the center, where it was least crevassed.
The marginal moraines on the Hayden glacier are formed of fragments of brown and gray sandstone and black shale of all sizes and shapes. It is clear that this débris was gathered by the cliffs bordering the glacier on either side. The medial moraine which first appears at the surface just above the rapids is of a different character, and tells that the higher peaks of Mount Cook are composed, in part at least, of a different material fromthe spurs projecting from it. The medial moraine looks black from a distance, but, on traversing it, it was found to be composed mainly of dark-green gabbro and serpentine. The débris is scattered over the surface in a belt several rods wide; but it is not deep, as the ice can almost everywhere be seen between the stones. Where the fragments of rock are most widely separated, there are fine illustrations of the manner in which small, dark stones absorb the heat of the sun and melt the ice beneath more rapidly than the surrounding surface, sinking into the ice so as to form little wells, several inches deep, filled with clear water. Larger stones, which are not warmed through during a day's sunshine, protect the ice beneath while the adjacent surface is melted, and consequently become elevated on pillars or pedestals of ice. The stones thus elevated are frequently large, and form tables which are nearly always inclined southward. In other instances the ice over large areas, especially along the center of the medial moraine, was covered with cones of fine, angular fragments from a few inches to three or four feet in height. These were not really piles of gravel, as they seemed, but consisted of cones of ice, sheeted over with thin layers of small stones. The secret of their formation, long since discovered on the glaciers of Switzerland, is that the gravel is first concentrated in a hole in the ice and, as the general surface melts away, acts like a large stone and protects the ice beneath. It is raised on a pedestal, but the gravel at the borders continually rolls down the sides and a conical form is the result.
Where we crossed the Hayden glacier it is only about a mile broad in a direct line; but to traverse it by the circuitous route rendered necessary by the character of its surface required about three hours of hard tramping, even when unincumbered with packs. From the center of the glacier a magnificent view may be obtained of the snow-covered domes of Mount Cook, from which rugged mountain ridges stretch southward like great arms and enclose the white snow-field from which the glacier flows. At an elevation of 2,500 feet the icy portion disappears beneath the névé on which not a trace of débris is visible. All the higher portions of the mountains are white as snow can make them, except where the pinnacles and precipices are too steep to retain a covering.
On reaching the western side of the glacier we found a bare space on the bordering cliffs, about a hundred feet high, whichhas been abandoned by the ice so recently that it is not yet grassed over. Above this came the luxuriant and beautiful vegetation covering all the lower mountain slopes.
The mountain spur just west of the glacier, like several of the ridges stretching southward from the higher mountains, ends in a group of hills somewhat separate from the main ridge. The hills are covered with a rank vegetation, and in places support a dense growth of spruce trees. Reaching the grassy summit, we had a fine, far-reaching view of the unexplored region toward the west, and of the vast plateau of ice stretching southward beyond the reach of the vision. West of our station, another great ice-stream, named theMarvine glacier, in honor of the late A. R. Marvine, flows southward with a breadth exceeding that of any of the icy streams yet crossed. Beyond the Marvine glacier, and forming its western border, there is an exceedingly rugged mountain range trending northeast and southwest. Although this is, topographically, a portion of the mountain mass forming Mount Cook, its prominence and its peculiar geological structure render it important that it should have an independent name. In acknowledgment of the services to science rendered by the first state geologist of Massachusetts, it is designated theHitchcock rangeon our maps. Rising above the angular crest line of this mountain mass towers the pyramidal summit of Mount St. Elias, seemingly as distant as when we first beheld it from near Yakutat bay.
About a mile west of the hill on which we stood, and beyond the bed of a lake now drained of its waters by a tunnel leading southward through the ice, rose a steep, rocky island out of the glaciers, its summit overgrown with vegetation and dark with spruce trees. This oasis in a sea of ice, subsequently named Blossom island, we chose as the most favorable site for our next advance-camp.
We then returned to our camp in Floral pass, and a day or two later Kerr and Christie started on a side trip up the Hayden glacier, to be absent five days. During this trip the weather was stormy, and only allowed half an hour for topographical work when a somewhat favorable station was reached. This was of great service, however, in mapping the country, as it gave a station of considerable elevation on the side of Mount Cook. The trip was nearly all above the snow-line, and was relieved by many novel experiences.
While Kerr and Christie were away, I assisted the camp hands in advancing to Blossom island. Our first day's work consisted in packing loads across the Hayden glacier to the wooded hills on its western border, reached during the reconnoissance described above. The weather was stormy, and a dense fog rolled in from the ocean, obscuring the mountains, and compelling us to find our way across the glacier as best we could without landmarks. Patiently threading our way among crevasses, we at length came in sight of the forests on the extremity of the mountain spur toward the west, and concluded to camp there until the weather was more favorable. We climbed the bare slope bordering the glacier, and forced our way through the dripping vegetation to an open space beside a little stream and near some aged spruce trees that would furnish good fuel for a camp-fire. We were glad of a refuge, but did not fully appreciate the fact that our tents were in a paradise of flowers until the next morning, when the sun shone clear and bright for a few hours. We hailed with delight the world of summer beauty with which we were surrounded. Our camp was in a little valley amid irregular hills of débris left by the former ice invasion, each of which was a rounded dome of flowers. The desolate ice-fields were completely shut out from view by the rank vegetation. On the slope above us, dark spruce trees loaded with streamers of moss, and seemingly many centuries old, formed a background for the floral decoration with which the ground was everywhere covered. Flowering plants and ferns were massed in such dense luxuriance that the streams were lost in gorgeous banks of bloom.
Reluctantly we returned to Floral pass for another load of camp supplies, and late in the afternoon pressed on to Blossom island, where we again pitched our tents in rain and mist, and again, when the storm cleared away, found ourselves in an untrodden paradise. Kerr and Christie rejoined us at Blossom island on July 31, and we were once more ready for an advance.
BLOSSOMISLAND.
BLOSSOMISLAND.
Our camp on Blossom island was near a small pond of water and close beside a thick grove of spruce trees on the western side of the land-mass. The tents were so placed as to secure an unobstructed view to the westward; and they were visible, in turn, to parties descending from the mountains toward the northwest, whither our work soon led us.
The sides of Blossom island are rough and precipitous. The glaciers flowing past it cut away the rocks and, as the surface of the ice-fields was lowered, left them in many places in rugged cliffs bare of vegetation. The top of the island was also formerly glaciated and in part covered with débris; but the ice retreated so long ago that the once desolate surface has become clothed in verdure. Everywhere there are dense growths of flowers, ferns and berry bushes. On the rocky spurs, thrifty spruce trees, festooned with drooping streamers, shelter luxuriant banks of mosses, lichens and ferns. There was no evidence that human hand had ever plucked a flower in that luxuriant garden; not a trace could be found of man's previous invasion. The only trails were those left by the bears in forcing their way through the dense vegetation in quest of succulent roots. Later in the season, when the berries ripened, there was a feast spread invitingly for all who chose to partake. On the warm summer days the air was filled with the perfume of the flowers, birds flitted in and out of the shady grove, and insects hummed in the glad sunlight; the freshness and beauty on every hand made this island seem a little Eden, preserved with all its freshness and fragrance from the destroying hand of man.
This oasis in a desert of ice is so beautiful and displays so many instructive and attractive features that I wish the reader to come with me up the flowery slopes and study the interesting pictures to be seen from its summit.
The narrow ravine back of our camp is festooned and overhung with tall ferns, shooting out from the thickets on either hand like bending plumes. You will notice at a glance, if perchance your youthful excursions happened to be in the northeastern states, as were mine, that many of the plants about us are old friends, or at least former acquaintances. The tall fern nodding so gracefully as we pass is anAsplenium, but of ranker growth than in most southern regions. These tall white flowers with aspiring, flat-topped umbels, looking like rank caraway plants, but larger and more showy, belong to the genusArchangelica, and are at home in the Cascade range and the Rocky Mountains as well as here. The lily-like plant growing so profusely, especially in the moist dells, with tall, slim spikes of greenish flowers and long parallel veined leaves, isVeratrum viride. These brilliant yellow monkey-flowers, bending so gracefully over the banks of the pond, are closely related to the littleMimuluswhich nods to its own golden reflection in many of the brooks of New England. That purpleEpilobrum, with now and then a pure white variety, so common everywhere on these hills, is the same wanderer that we have seen over many square miles beneath the burnt woods of Maine. These bushes with obscure white flowers, looking like little waxen bells, we recognize at once as huckleberries; in a short time they will be loaded with luscious fruit. Inviting couches of moss beneath the spruce trees are festooned and decorated with fairy shapes of brown and green, that recall many a long ramble among the Adirondack hills and in the Canadian woods. The licapods, equiseta and ferns are many of them identical with the tracery on mossy mounds covering fallen hemlocks in the Otsego woods in New York, but display greater luxuriance and fresher and more brilliant colors. That graceful little beach-fern, here and there faded to a rich brown, foretelling of future changes, is identical with the little fairy form we used to gather long ago along the borders of the Great Lakes. Asters and gentians, delicate orchids and purple lupines, besides many less familiar plants, crowd the hillsides and deck the unkept meadows with a brilliant mass of varied light. In the full sunshine, the hill-slopes appear as if the fields of petals clothing them had the prism's power, and were spreading a web of rainbow tints over the lush leaves and grasses below.
On our return to Blossom island, late in September, we found many of the flowers faded, but in their places there was a profusion of berries nearly as brilliant in color as the petals that heralded their coming. Many of the thickets, inconspicuous before, had then a deep, rich yellow tint, due to an abundance of luscious salmon berries, larger than our largest blackberries. The huckleberries were also ripe, and in wonderful profusion. These additions to our table were especially appreciated after living for more than a month in the snow. The ash trees were holding aloft great bunches of scarlet berries, even deeper and richer in color than the ripe leaves on the same brilliant branches. The deep woods were brilliant with the broad yellow leaves of the Devil's club, above which rose spikes of crimson berries. The dense thickets of currant bushes, so luxuriant that it was difficult to force one's way through them, had received a dusky, smoke-like tint, due to abundant blue-black strings of fruit suspended all along the under sides of the branches.
Let us not look too far ahead, however. Wandering on over the sunny slopes, where the gardener has forgotten to separate the colors or to divide the flower banks, we gain the top of the island; but so dense are the plants about us, and so eager is each painted cup to expand freely in the sunlight at the expense of its neighbors, that we have to beat them down with our alpenstocks—much as we dislike to mar the beauty of the place—before we can recline on the thick turf beneath and study the strange landscape before us.
The foreground of every view is a bank of flowers nodding and swaying in the wind, but all beyond is a frozen desert. The ice-fields before us, with their dark bands of débris, are a picture of desolation. The creative breath has touched only the garden which we, the first of wanderers, have invaded. The land before us is entirely without human associations. No battles have there been fought, no kings have ruled, no poets have sung of its ruggedness, and no philosopher has explained its secrets. Yet it has its history, its poetry, and its philosophy!
The mountains toward the north are too near at hand to reveal their grandeur; only the borders of the vast snow-fields covering all of these upper slopes are in view. In the deep cañon with perpendicular walls, just north of our station, but curving westward so that its upper course is concealed from view, there flows a secondary glacier which forces its terminal moraine high up on the northern slope of Blossom island, but does not now join the ice-field on the south. Streams of turbid water flow from this glacier on each side of the oasis on which we stand and unite at the mouth of a dark tunnel in the ice toward the south.
The barren gravel plain just east of our station, and at the foot of the glacier from the north, is the bed of a glacial lake which has been drained through the tunnel in the ice. On our way to Blossom island we crossed this area and found that it had but recently lost its waters. Miniature terraces on the gravel banks forming the sides of the basin marked the height to which the waters last rose, and all the slopes formerly submerged were covered with a thin layer of sediment. On the sides of the basin where this fresh lining rests on steep slopes there are beautiful frettings made by rills in the soft sediment. The stream from the glacier now meanders across this sand plain, dividing as it goes into many branches, which unite onapproaching the dark archway below. The lake is extremely irregular in its behavior, and may be filled and emptied several times in a season. The waters are either restrained or flow freely, according as the tunnel through which they discharge is obstructed or open. The lake is typical of a class. Similar basins may be found about many of the spurs projecting into the Malaspina glacier.
A little west of the glacier to which I have directed your attention there is a narrow mountain gorge occupied by another glacier, of small size but having all the principal characteristics of even the largest Alpine glaciers of the region. It is less than half a mile in length, has a high grade, and is fed by several lateral branches. Its surface is divided into an ice region below and a névé region above. It has lateral and medial moraines, ice pinnacles, crevasses, and many other details peculiar to glaciers. From its extremity, which is dark with dirt and stones, there flows a stream of turbid water. It is, in fact, a miniature similitude of the ice-streams on the neighboring mountain, some of which are forty or fifty miles in length and many times wider in their narrowest part than the little glacier before us is long. The more thoroughly we become acquainted with the mountains of southern Alaska the more interesting and more numerous do the Alpine glaciers of the third order become. Already, thousands could be enumerated.
I will not detain my imaginary companion longer with local details, but turn at once to the objects which will ever be the center of attraction to visitors who may chance to reach this remote island in the ice. Looking far up the Marvine glacier, beyond the tapering pinnacles and rugged peaks about its head, you will see spires and cathedral-like forms of the purest white projected against the northern sky. They recall at once the ecclesiastic architecture of the Old World; but instead of being dim and faded by time they seem built of immaculate marble. They have a grandeur and repose seen only in mountains of the first magnitude. The cathedral to the right, with the long roof-like crest and a tapering spire at its eastern terminus, is Mount Augusta; its elevation is over 13,000 feet. A little to the west, and equally beautiful but slightly less in elevation, is Mount Malaspina—a worthy monument to the unfortunate navigator whose name it bears. These peaks are on the main St. Elias range, but from our present point of view they form only thebackground of a magnificent picture. Later in the season our tents were pitched at their very bases, and they then revealed their full grandeur and fulfilled every promise given by distant views.
The rugged Hitchcock range bordering the distant margin of the Marvine glacier, like the mountains near at hand and the rocky island on which we stand, is composed of sandstone and shale, but presents one interesting feature, to which I shall direct your attention. The trend of the range is northeast and southwest, but the strata of which it is composed run east and west and are inclined northward. As the range is some eight miles long, these conditions would seem to indicate a thickness of many thousands of feet for the rocks of which it is composed; yet the beds were deposited in horizontal sheets of sand and mud of very late date, as will be shown farther on. But the great apparent thickness of the strata is deceptive: a nearer examination would reveal the fact that the rocks have been so greatly crushed that even a hand specimen can scarcely be broken off with fresh surfaces. More than this, the black shale, exhibiting the greatest amount of crushing, is usually in wedge-shaped masses, which, in some cases at least, are bordered by what are known as thrust planes, nearly coinciding with the bedding planes of the strata. The rocks have been fractured and crushed together in such a way as to pile fragments of the same layer on top of each other, and thus to increase greatly their apparent thickness. In the elevations before us the thrust planes are tipped northeastwardly, and it would seem that the force that produced them acted from that direction. The apparent thickness of the beds has thus been increased many times. What their original thickness was, it is not now possible to say. Similar indications of a lateral crushing in the rocks may be found in several of the mountain spurs between the Hitchcock range and Yakutat bay; but space will not permit me to follow this subject further.
Turning from the mountains, we direct our eyes seaward; but it is a sea of ice that meets our view and not the blue Pacific. Far as the eye can reach toward the west, toward the south, and toward the southeast there is nothing in view but a vast plateau of ice or barren débris fields resting on ice and concealing it from view. This is the Malaspina glacier.
On the border of the ice, just below the cliffs on which westand, there is a belt of débris perhaps five miles in breadth, which almost completely conceals the ice beneath. Portions of this moraine are covered by vegetation, and in places it is brilliant with flowers. The vegetation is most abundant on the nearer border and fades away toward the center of the glacier. Its distant border, adjacent to the white ice-field beyond, isabsolutely bare and desolate. An attempt has been made to reproduce this scene in the picture forming plate 16. The drawing is from a photograph and shows the barren débris field stretching away towards the southwest. The extreme southern end of the Hitchcock range appears at the right. In the distance is the white ice of the central part of the Malaspina glacier. Far beyond, faintly outlined against the sky, are the snow-covered hills west of Icy bay. The flowers in the foreground are growing on the crest of the steep bluff bordering Blossom island on the south.
Malaspina Glacier
Malaspina Glacier
On the moraine-covered portion, especially where plants have taken root, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lakelets occupying kettle-shaped depressions. A view of one of these interesting reservoirs in the ice is given in figure 2. If we should go down to the glacier and examine such a lakelet near at hand, we should find that the cliffs of ice surrounding them are usually unsymmetrical, being especially steep and rugged on one side and low or perhaps wanting entirely on the other. But there is no regularity in this respect; the steep slopes may face in any direction. On bright days the encircling walls are always dripping with water produced by the melting of the ice; little rills are constantly flowing down their sides and plunging in miniature cataracts into the lake below; the stones at the top of the ice-cliffs, belonging to the general sheet of débris covering the glacier, are continually being undermined and precipitated into the water. A curious fact in reference to the walls of the lakelets is that the melting of the ice below the surface is more rapid than above, where it is exposed to the direct rays of the sun. As a result the depressions have the form of an hour-glass, as indicated in the accompanying section.
Beyond the bordering moraines at our feet, we can look far out over the ice-plateau and view hundreds of square miles of itsfrozen surface. At the same time we obtain glimpses of other vast ice-fields toward the west, beyond Icy bay; but their limits in that direction are unknown.
Later in the season I made an excursion far out on the Malaspina glacier from the extreme southern end of the Hitchcock range, and became acquainted with many of its peculiarities. Its surface, instead of being a smooth snow-field, as it appears from a distance, is roughened by thousands of crevasses, many of which are filled with clear, blue water. Over hundreds of square miles the surface appears as if a giant plow had passed over it, leaving the ice furrowed with crevasses. The crevasses are not broad; usually one can cross them at a bound. They appear to be the scars left by rents in the tributary ice-streams.
The stillness far out on the great ice-field is immediately noticed by one who has recently traversed the sloping surfaces of the tributary glaciers. It is always silent on that vast frozen plateau. There are no surface streams and no lakes; not a rill murmurs along its channel of ice; no cascades are formed by streams plunging into moulins and crevasses. The water produced by the melting of the ice finds its way down into the glacier and perhaps to its bottom, and must there form rivers of large size; but no indications of their existence can be obtained at the surface. The icy surface is undulating, and resembles in some respects the great rolling prairies of the west; it is a prairie of ice. In the central portion not a shoot of vegetation casts its shadow, and scarcely a fragment of rock can be found. The boundaries of the vast plateau have never been surveyed, but its area cannot be less than five hundred square miles. The clear ice of the center greatly exceeds the extent of the moraine-covered borders. It has a general elevation of fifteen or sixteen hundred feet, being highest near the end of the Hitchcock range, where the Seward glacier comes in, and decreasing from there in all directions. From the summit of Blossom island and other commanding stations it is evident that the dark moraine belts about its borders are compound and record a varied history. Far away toward the southeast the individual elements may be distinguished. The dark bands of débris sweep around in great curves and concentric, swirl-like figures, which indicate that there are complicated currents in the seemingly motionless plateau.
The Malaspina glacier belongs to a class of ice bodies notpreviously recognized, which are formed at the bases of mountains by the union of several glaciers from above. Their position suggests the name ofPiedmont glaciersfor the type. They differ from continental glaciers in the fact that they are formed by the union of ice-streams and are not the sources from which ice-streams flow. The supply from the tributary glacier is counterbalanced by melting and evaporation.
If the reader has become interested in the vast ice-fields about Blossom island, he may wish to continue our acquaintance and go with me into the great snow-fields on the higher mountains, where the ice-rivers feeding the Malaspina glacier have their sources.
LIFEABOVE THESNOW-LINE.
LIFEABOVE THESNOW-LINE.
Early on the morning of August 2, all necessary preparations having been made the day previous, we started in the direction of the great snow peak to be seen at the head of the Marvine glacier, where we hoped to find a pass leading through the mountains which would enable us to reach the foot of Mount St. Elias or to discover a practicable way across the main range into the unknown country toward the north.
All of the camp hands were with us at the start, except Stamy and White, who had been despatched to Port Mulgrave to purchase shoes. All but Crumback and Lindsley were to return to Blossom island, however, after leaving their loads at a rendezvous as far from Blossom island as could be reached in a day and allow sufficient time to return to the base-camp. Kerr and myself, with the two camp hands mentioned, were to press on to the snow-fields above. We took with us a tent, blankets, rations, an oil-stove, and a supply of coal oil, and felt equal to any emergency that might arise.
The morning of our departure was thick and foggy, with occasional showers, and the weather grew worse instead of better as we advanced. All the mountains were soon shut out from view by the vast vapor banks that settled down from above, and we had little except the general character of the glacier to guide us.
Our way at first led up the eastern border of the Marvine glacier, over seemingly interminable fields of angular débris. Traveling on the rugged moraine, some idea of which may be obtained from plate 17, was not only tiresome in the extreme, but ruinous to boots and shoes. On passing the mouth of thefirst lateral gorge (about a mile from Blossom island), from which flows a secondary glacier, we could look up the bed of the steep ravine to the white precipices beyond, which seemed to descend out of the clouds, and were scarred by avalanches; but all of the higher peaks were shrouded from view. At noon we passed the mouth of a second and larger gorge, which discharges an important tributary. We then left the border of the glacier and traveled up its center, the crevasses at the embouchures of the tributary stream being too numerous and too wide to be crossed without great difficulty.