acier to see
the birth of these unnatural forms. They break from the icy wall with a
stupendous crash, and fall into the water with such force as to send our
great ship careening on her side when the swell from the disturbed waters
strikes her.

The Muir glacier is the one that occupies the most attention, as it is
the most accessible to tourists. It rises to a perpendicular height of
350 feet, and stretches across the entire head of the Glacier Bay, which
is estimated from three to five miles in width. The Muir and Davidson
glaciers are two arms of that great Ice field extending more than 400
miles in length, covering more area

THAN ALL SWITZERLAND,

and any one of the fifteen subdivisions of the glacial stream is as large
as the Great Rhone glacier.

Underlying this great ice field is that glacial river which bears these
mountains of ice on its bosom to the ocean. With a roar like distant
artillery, or an approaching thunder-storm, the advancing walls of this
great monster split and fall into the watery deep, which has been sounded
to a depth of some 800 feet without finding anchor.

The glacial wall is a rugged, uneven mass, with clefts and crevices,
towering pinnacles and domes, higher than Bunker Hill monument, cutting
the air at all angles, and with a stupendous crash sections break off
from any portion without warning and sink far out of sight. Scarcely two
minutes elapse without a portion falling from some quarter. The marble
whiteness of the face is relieved by lines of intense blue, a
characteristic peculiar to the small portions as well as the great.

Going ashore in little rowboats, the vast area along the sandy beach was
first explored, and it was, indeed, like a fairy land. There were acres
of grottoes, whose honey-combed walls were most delicately carved by the
soft winds and the sunlight reflections around and in the arches of ice,
such as are never seen except in water, ice, and sky.

MOUNTAINS OF ICE,

remnants of glaciers, along the beach, stood poised on one point, or
perchance on two points, and arched between. These icebergs were dotted
with stones imbedded; great bowls were melted out and filled with water,
and little cups made of ice would afford you a drink of fresh water on
the shore of this salt sea.

At five o'clock in the morning, with the sun kissing the cold majestic
glacier into a glad awakening from its icy sleep, the ascent was begun.
Too eager to be among the first to see t