g drum. I hoped that by waiting
until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of
the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast, half
air, half water, followed by the fall of an enormous mass of frozen
spray from a spot high up on the wall, quickly discouraged me. The whole
cone was jarred by the blow and some fragments of the mass sped past me
dangerously near; so I beat a hasty retreat, chilled and drenched, and
lay down on a sunny rock to dry.

Once during a wind-storm when I saw that the fall was frequently blown
westward, leaving the cone dry, I ran up to Fern Ledge hoping to gain a
clear view of the interior. I set out at noon. All the way up the storm
notes were so loud about me that the voice of the fall was almost
drowned by them. Notwithstanding the rocks and bushes everywhere were
drenched by the wind-driven spray, I approached the brink of the
precipice overlooking the mouth of the ice cone, but I was almost
suffocated by the drenching, gusty spray, and was compelled to seek
shelter. I searched for some hiding-place in the wall from whence I
might run out at some opportune moment when the fall with its whirling
spray and torn shreds of comet tails and trailing, tattered skirts was
borne westward, as I had seen it carried several times before, leaving
the cliffs on the east side and the ice hill bare in the sunlight. I had
not long to wait, for, as if ordered so for my special accommodation,
the mighty downrush of comets with their whirling drapery swung westward
and remained aslant for nearly half an hour. The cone was admirably
lighted and deserted by the water, which fell most of the time on the
rocky western slopes mostly outside of the cone. The mouth into which
the fall pours was, as near as I could guess, about one hundred feet in
diameter north and south and about two hundred feet east and west, which
is about the shape and size of the fall at its best in its normal
condition at this season.

The crater-like opening was not a true oval, but more like a huge coarse
mouth. I could see down the throat about one hundred feet or perhaps
farther.

The fall precipice overhangs from a height of 400 feet above the base;
therefore the water strikes some distance from the base off the cliff,
allowing space for the accumulation of a considerable mass of ice
between the fall and the wall.

Chapter 2

Winter Storms and Spring Floods

The Bridal Veil and the U