The Ascent of Mount St. Elias Alaska (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...is longer than that to the east, and is still walled in by the Samovar Hills. The cliffs are of the same character as before. The glacier is only slightly crevasscd, and terminates at the bottom in a drop, luckily not steep enough to form an ice-fall. We descend it easily, letting the sledge slide down on a wide ridge of ice between two deep furrows, and halt (13th July) on the eastern ridge of the Agassiz Glacier, at the foot of the col. We have descended about 485 feet, so are now a little lower than at the corresponding camp on the Seward, about 3,566 feet above the sea. The Agassiz Glacier--its broken surface bristling with jagged sdracs--skirts the base of the north buttress of the Dome Pass, winding towards Mount Augusta and the Malaspina. Behind, there must be a great basin collecting the snows from the west flank of Mount Augusta, from the Malaspina and Behring, bounded by the Samovar chain on the east, and, on the west, by a ridge running down from the Behring and dividing the upper basin of the Agassiz from the lower part of the Newton.1 Our camp stands 1 Mr. Russell gives a somewhat different account of the topography of this region. In his opinion, the head of the Samovar chain, instead of joining on to Mount Augusta, is connected with Mount Malaspina, whence glaciers run down into the Seward (Cascade Glacier). From our own observations on the spot, and from facing the great cascade of scracs with which the Newton hurls itself down into the Agassiz, and at their point of junction the two glaciers are of about equal volume. On the north buttress of the Dome Pass, rising steeply at a little distance from us, a few patches of green are still seen 600 feet higher up. The limit of vegetation on the mountain slopes facing south must...