From
Terrace To Terrace The Grist Of Stone Is Rolled And Sifted.
Some,
meeting only feeble streams, have only the fine particles carried
away and deposited in smooth beds; others, coarser, from swifter
streams, overspread the fine beds, while many of the large boulders
no doubt roll back upon the glacier to go on their travels again.
It has been cloudy mostly to-day, though sunny in the afternoon, and
my eyes are getting better. The steamer Queen is expected in a day or
two, so I must try to get down to the inlet to-morrow and make signal
to have some of the Reid party ferry me over. I must hear from home,
write letters, get rest and more to eat.
Near the front of the glacier the ice was perfectly free, apparently,
of anything like a crevasse, and in walking almost carelessly down it
I stopped opposite the large granite Nunatak Island, thinking that I
would there be partly sheltered from the wind. I had not gone a dozen
steps toward the island when I suddenly dropped into a concealed
water-filled crevasse, which on the surface showed not the slightest
sign of its existence. This crevasse like many others was being used
as the channel of a stream, and at some narrow point the small
cubical masses of ice into which the glacier surface disintegrates
were jammed and extended back farther and farther till they
completely covered and concealed the water. Into this I suddenly
plunged, after crossing thousands of really dangerous crevasses, but
never before had I encountered a danger so completely concealed. Down
I plunged over head and ears, but of course bobbed up again, and
after a hard struggle succeeded in dragging myself out over the
farther side. Then I pulled my sled over close to Nunatak cliff, made
haste to strip off my clothing, threw it in a sloppy heap and crept
into my sleeping-bag to shiver away the night as best I could.
July 21. Dressing this rainy morning was a miserable job, but might
have been worse. After wringing my sloppy underclothing, getting it
on was far from pleasant. My eyes are better and I feel no bad effect
from my icy bath. The last trace of my three months' cough is gone.
No lowland grippe microbe could survive such experiences.
I have had a fine telling day examining the ruins of the old forest
of Sitka spruce that no great time ago grew in a shallow mud-filled
basin near the southwest corner of the glacier. The trees were
protected by a spur of the mountain that puts out here, and when the
glacier advanced they were simply flooded with fine sand and
overborne. Stumps by the hundred, three to fifteen feet high, rooted
in a stream of fine blue mud on cobbles, still have their bark on. A
stratum of decomposed bark, leaves, cones, and old trunks is still in
place. Some of the stumps are on rocky ridges of gravelly soil about
one hundred and twenty-five feet above the sea.
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