Quarry Mountain is cut across into a series
of parallel ridges by oversweeping ice.
It is still overswept in
three places by glacial flows a half to three quarters of a mile
wide, finely arched at the top of the divides. I have been sketching,
though my eyes are much inflamed and I can scarce see. All the lines
I make appear double. I fear I shall not be able to make the few more
sketches I want to-morrow, but must try. The day has been gloriously
sunful, the glacier pale yellow toward five o'clock. The hazy air,
white with a yellow tinge, gives an Indian-summerish effect. Now the
blue evening shadows are creeping out over the icy plain, some ten
miles long, with sunny yellow belts between them. Boulders fall now
and again with dull, blunt booming, and the gravel pebbles rattle.
July 19. Nearly blind. The light is intolerable and I fear I may be
long unfitted for work. I have been lying on my back all day with a
snow poultice bound over my eyes. Every object I try to look at seems
double; even the distant mountain-ranges are doubled, the upper an
exact copy of the lower, though somewhat faint. This is the first
time in Alaska that I have had too much sunshine. About four o'clock
this afternoon, when I was waiting for the evening shadows to enable
me to get nearer the main camp, where I could be more easily found in
case my eyes should become still more inflamed and I should be unable
to travel, thin clouds cast a grateful shade over all the glowing
landscape.
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