tle fellow, seeing an open door, made a sudden break for
it, and plunged into the berth of a shy damsel, who, put to ignominious
flight in the first gust of the panic, had sought safety in her
state-room only to be singled out for the recipient of the rascal's
special attentions. She was rescued by the bravest of the brave; but
Bruin had to be dragged from behind the lace curtains with a lasso, and
then he brought some shreds of lace with him as a trophy. He was more
popular than ever after this little adventure, and many an hour we spent
in recounting to one another the varied emotions awakened by the
episode.

Heading for Glacier Bay, we found a flood of bitter cold water so filled
with floating ice that it was quite impossible to avoid frequent
collisions with masses of more or less magnitude. There was an almost
continual thumping along the ship's side as the paddle struck heavily
the ice fragments which we found littering the frozen sea. There was
also a dull reverberation as of distant thunder that rolled over the sea
to us; and when we learned that this was the crackling of the ice-pack
in the gorges, we thought with increasing solemnity of the majesty of
the spectacle we were about to witness.

Thus we pushed forward bravely toward an ice-wall that stretched across
the top of the bay from one high shore to the other. This wall of ice, a
precipitous bluff or palisade, is computed to be from two hundred to
five hundred feet in height. It is certainly nowhere less than two
hundred, but most of it far nearer five hundred feet above sea level,
rising directly out of it, overhanging it, and chilling the air
perceptibly. Picking our path to within a safe distance of the glacier,
we cast anchor and were free to go our ways for a whole glorious day.
According to Professor John Muir--for whom the glacier is deservedly
named,--the ice-wall measures three miles across the front; ten miles
farther back it is ten miles in breadth. Sixteen tributary glaciers
unite to form the one.

Professor Muir, accompanied by the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell,
visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this
region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to
his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous
speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most
self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed
this glacier. It is dissolving a