e icy wall, and, widening in their sweep, washed the
blocks of floating ice up on the beaches on either side.... The nearer
one approached the higher the ice-walls seemed, and all along the front
there were pinnacles and spires weighing several tons, that seemed on
the point of toppling every moment. The great buttresses of ice that
rose first from the water and touched the moraine were as solidly white
as marble, veined and streaked with rocks and mud, but farther on, as
the pressure was greater, the color slowly deepened to turquoise and
sapphire blues."

[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER, ALASKA]

Alexander Badlam, in his "Wonders of Alaska," p. 42, quotes Professor
Muir himself as saying that the front and brow of the glacier were
"dashed and sculptured into a maze of yawning chasm, ravines, canyons,
crevasses, and, a bewildering chaos of architectural forms, beautiful
beyond the measure of description, and so bewildering in their beauty as
to almost make the spectator believe he was revelling in a dream."
"There were," he said, "great clusters of glistening spires, gables,
obelisks, monoliths, and castles, standing out boldly against the sky,
with bastion and mural, surmounted by fretted cornice, and every
interstice and chasm reflecting a sheen of scintillating light and
deep-blue shadow, making a combination of color, dazzling, startling,
and enchanting."

The next sensation in store for the tourist is the climb to the top of
the glacier. All the row-boats were lowered, and about a dozen
passengers in each, armed with alpenstocks, were ferried in successive
groups from the ship to the eastern beach, a distance of perhaps half a
mile, instructions being given to each steersman to keep a sharp lookout
for falling icebergs. And here your trouble commences unless you are
well advised. The ascent is exceedingly difficult; what looks like a
mountain of rock over which you must wend your way to the ice-fields, is
really a mountain of ice covered by a layer of slimy mud, crusted with
pieces of flinty granite, standing up on end like broken bottle glass on
top of a wall. I wore India-rubber high boots when I started, and I
needed crutches before I finished. It may be chilly as you leave the
ship, according as the sun may be out or in; if chilly, get your escort
to carry an extra shawl for you to wrap yourself in when you row back to
the ship; if the weather is bright and warm, clothe yourself lightly,
for it grows warmer wit