Alaska Scenery.

pA\u27AyU- MAAIcAi A/c Jf A A 82 THE TRAVELER, I ... ALASKA SCENERY. JOHN MUIR. The great wilderness of Alaska, with its lofty mountains laden willi glaciers and snosv, its deep inreaching fiords, flosvery plains, and its boundless svealth of evergreen forests and islands, and shining, singing svaters, offers a glorious field for lovers of fountain beauty, much of which is nosv within easy reach of the ordinary traveler. The trip by steamer, from Puget Sound to the head of the Alexander Archipelago, is perfectly enchanting. Leaving scientific interests entirely out of the count, no excursion that I knosv of may be made into any other portion of the wilds of America where so much fine and grand and novel scenery is so freely unfolded to viesv. Gazing from the decl of the steamer one is borne smoothly over calm, blue waters, on and through the midst of a thousand islands densely clothed with well- svatered evergreens. The common discomforts of a sea voyage are not felt, because the course lies through a net- svork of sheltered channels that are usually about as free as rivers are from heaving waves; and, svere it not for the briny odor in the air and the strip of brosvn alga? seen at losv tide on either shore, it would be difficult to realize that ss\u27e are sailing on salt ocean-svater; sve seem, rather, to be tracing a succession of inland glacier-lakes. Day after day we float in the heart of true fairyland, each succeeding viesv seeming more and more beautiful. An Alaskan midsummer day is a day svithout night. In the extreme northern part of the territory the sun does not set for weeks; and, even as far south as Sitka at its losvest point, it is only a fesv degrees belosv the horizon, so that the colors of the sunset blend with those of the sunrise, leaving no gap of night-darkness that are almost always present are then colored orange and red, marking, in a very striking svay, the progress of the sun around the northern horizon. The day opens slowly; a losv arch of light steals round to the northeastward, svith gradual increase of height and span and intensity of tone; and, svhen at length the sun appears above the horizon, it is without much of that stirring pomp, that flashing, asvakening, triumphant energy, so suggestive of the bible imagery, —a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing like a strong man to run a race. The red clouds, with yellow, dissolving edges, subside into a hazy dimness; the islands, svith ruffs of mist about them, cast ill-defined shadows on the glistening svaters; and the whole firmament becomes pale pearl-gray. For three or four hours after sunrise there is nothing particularly impressive to be felt in the landscape. The sun, though seemingly unclouded, may almost be looked in the face; and the magnificent svall of pale-blue ice svould, probably, be found to be not less than a thousand feet in height. Though in general viess\u27s it seems massive and regulat TOTEM POLE. between. What is called the midnight of divided days is here only a losv noon,—the middle point in the gloaming, svith light enough to read by. The thin clouds islands and mountains, svith all their svealth of wood and ice, and varied beauty of Nature\u27s architecture, seem comparatively dull and silent. Glacier Bay is of intense interest to tourists. . The Muir Glacier enters the bay on the northeast side, at the head of a fiord svith lofty, massive granite svalls. The steamer sails up the fiord with its load of ss\u27ondering tourists, making a svay through the drifting icebergs with which the svaters are crowded, and drops anchor within half a mile of the blue, shining ice-wall in which the glacier terminates. When first observed, at a distance of eight or ten miles, the ice-svall appears as an abrupt, sharply defined barrier about fifty feet high, stretching across from side to side of the fiord, a distance of several miles. Its height above the svater is probably three or four hundred feet, but far the greater portion is below the svater and terminal moraine. If the water and the rock-detritus of the bottom svere drained and cleared away, this in form, it is by no means smooth. Deep rifts and hollows alternate svith broad, plain bastions, svhile it is roughened along the top svith innumerable spires and pyramids, and sharp, jagged blades, leaning and toppling; and, svhen the slanting sunbeams are pouring through the midst of all this angular cut-glass of ice, the effect is a perfect glory of rainbow colors. Added to this, and mingling svith it, is the irisecl spray ever and anon from tire plunging bergs as they fall from the svall or rise from the bottom of it with loud-resounding roar, ss\u27hile the countless bergs floating in front are shining also, and shifting the sunbeams, making a very paradise of light in full rainbow bloom. Impressive, too, are the nights along these crystal cliffs,—theshin- ing of the moon and stars; projecting buttresses and battlements, seemingly far higher than by das\u27, standing forward resplendent in the moonlight, vividly relieved amid the shadows of the hollows ; the thunder of the falling masses at intervals of three or foul minutes; and the lunar bows svith faint iris colors in the up-dashing spray. But it is in the darkest nights, when storms are blosving, that the grandest viess\u27s are to be had. Then the ghostly bergs, grating and crashing against one another, seem like living creatures dancing in mad delight svith the phosphorescent svater, which laves them all svith silver light; svhile the great crystal svall is illumined by a glowing fringe of foam beating against its base. Tss\u27o or three miles above the front, on the left bank, one may easily get upon the 1 ,Agk A A PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, JUNEAU. surface of the glacier, svhere it is so smooth and free from cracks and chasms that a hundred horsemen might ride abreast up stream for ten miles or more. A -;https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1211/thumbnail.jp