File:Wonderland, or, Alaska and the inland passage (1886) (14737885726).jpg

Identifier: wonderlandoralas47schw (find matches)
Title: Wonderland, or, Alaska and the inland passage
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Schwatka, Frederick, 1849-1892 Hyde, John, 1848-1929. From the Great Lakes to Puget Sound
Subjects: Northern Pacific Railroad Company
Publisher: St. Paul : Northern Pacific Railroad
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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iption of one person in consid-ering this the most fascinating and curious scene presented to the Alaskantourists. Grand, even to the extent of being almost appalling, as are theAlaskan fjords, they are but the Yosemite or Colorado Parks, with navigablevalleys, as they would appear greatly enlarged; much as we are awe-struck at the feet of Mount St. Elias, it is but Tacoma or Shasta in granderproportions, and so on through the list of scenes we view : but in the glacierswe have no counterpart that can be viewed from a steamers deck, unless thepolar zones themselves be invaded ; and here, in fact, we view the grandestsight to be seen in that dreary zone, without any of its many dangers. Says Pro-fessor Denman, of San Francisco, who has devoted much of his attention toglaciers, and especially these of Alaska, compared with which he pro-nounces those to be seen in Switzerland and other parts of Europe to bebabies : Muir Glacier is a spectacle whose grandeur can not be described,—a vast
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SCENES AMONG THE ALASKAN GLACIERS. (From Photographs.) No. 1 (Top). A Near View of the Terminal Front of the Muir Glacier. No. 2. Looking Seaward from the Surface of the Glacier. No 3. The Excursion Steamer at the Front of the Glacier. No. 4 (Bottom). On the Great Frozen Sea; a Near View of the Surface of the Glacier. (87) 88 THROUGH WONDERLAND, frozen river of ice, ever slowly moving to the sea, and piling the enormousmasses higher between the mountain banks, until their summit towers hundredsof feet in the air. Where the point of the glacier pushes out into and overhangsthe water, vast fragments breaking apart every few moments of their ownweight, and falling with a thundering crash into the sea, to float away as enor-mous icebergs, it affords a spectacle which can only be understood and appre-ciated by one who beholds it with his own eyes. From the summit of MuirGlacier no less than twenty-nine others are to be seen in various directions, allgrinding and crowding their huge masses

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