o the foot of a steep snowbank,
somewhat discolored from the gravel brought down by melting snow.
Without despairing, and being in that frame of mind prepared to incur
danger to a reasonable extent for the sake of knowledge, we climbed
several hundred feet over the snow and ice, having to cut steps with an
axe that we had brought along, before reaching the top. The latter stage
of this proceeding was like scrambling over the dome of the Washington
Capitol with a great yawning cliff below, and was well calculated to try
the nerve of any one except a competent mountaineer or a sailor
accustomed to a doddering mast. A ravine was next reached, through which
tumbled with loud noise and wild confusion, over broken rocks and amid
some scant lichens and mosses, a stream of pure water, which had
hollowed out a shaft or funnel, forming a glacier mill or moulin. It was
over the roof of this tunnel that we had passed, and it caused an
awesome feeling to come over one to see the water leap down its mouth to
an unseen depth with a loud rumbling noise. After a tiresome ascent of
the ravine, this hitherto inaccessible island, like a standing challenge
of Nature inviting the muscular and ambitious, was at last climbed to
the very summit; and it may be remarked, with pardonable vanity, that
the feat was never done before. The view revealed from the top of the
island was a veritable apocalypse. There was something unique about the
desolate grandeur of the novel surroundings that would cause a man of
the Sir Charles Coldstream type to say there "is something in it," and
the most hackneyed man of the world would acknowledge a new sensation.
It was midnight, and the sun shone with gleaming splendor over all this
waste of ice and sea and granite; on one hand Wrangel Island appeared in
well-defined outline, on the other an open sea extended northward as far
as we were able to make out by the aid of strong glasses. From our
position about the middle of the island the two extreme points of
Wrangel island bore southwest and west-by-south respectively. In shape,
Herald island is something like a boot with a depression at the instep,
and at the westernmost extremity, near which it may be climbed with
considerable ease, are found a number of jagged peaks and splintered
pinnacles of granite, some of which resemble the giant remains of
ancient sculpture, all the worse for exposure to the weather. On a
promontory 1,400 feet high at the northeast point of