Alaska.
28.6. The American Geoloaht. May, isc which H indeed til rVja'i'SC's't tctMU'e. One-third 6f the stntn'p ll'ilfl been rotted mil with il- pithy center before pefrilieation tok plan-. Tin- same niu-t have been the cast' with *oine fascicle of ri'-lU leavin...
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Scholarly Commons
1893
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| Summary: | 28.6. The American Geoloaht. May, isc which H indeed til rVja'i'SC's't tctMU'e. One-third 6f the stntn'p ll'ilfl been rotted mil with il- pithy center before pefrilieation tok plan-. Tin- same niu-t have been the cast' with *oine fascicle of ri'-lU leaving tiil.iillitr liolwj through t!. - length uf its growth, --nine being inch ill diameter, A -till better liiul was a section of a trunk eighl inches long and ten iin'fn thick, from which the perfect eharaetcristics of the tree can ho ascertained . From the latter the description and illustration tire taken. t EXDOGEX. / Genus: Winehdlimi. in, goij/). Winchellina fasoina. ( y-) Among the Mora of endogens our new genus stands isolated. If no interior arrangement could be ascertained, the exterior only would let us surmise a palm or fern in this form. But the excellent preservation of tins plant showing so minutely its inner organization makes it anobjectof high interest in our fossil flora, as well as in the botanical world. I have named it Wiiichellina as a token of kind remembrance of the late Dr. Alex. Winched of .'van Arbor. While we have in numerous plants well developed cell-bundles so arranged as to cause a harmonious cellular promotion and necessarily interwoven with the whole organism,we observe in ouff plant an arrangement, as it were, of independent growth of /fascicles. Each of them being encased by a very thick periderm, exhibits a peculiar inner tissue of ob- loiK" sub-quadrate cells with thick walls, simulating a transverse section of Carboniferous fossil pine. The whole tree is composed of sucjj fascicles which are | inch mean diameter, the outer ones crowding each other in contorted and polygonal forms and causing tl/e longitudinalIv ribbed exterior. Toward the more inner portior/the fascicles become more circular, parenchymous tissue filling the space. The third zone is crowded again with small oval fascicles enclosing tightly the parenchymous center 24 inches iii diameter, the structure of which can be seen in small perfectly circular cells. It/s likely that thiswas a most stately tree and that each fascicle/Shot out an independent branch crowning the tree with a bun- dj*e of diverging long, linear, reed like branches. i - •* . ,-., 2.87- ALASKA. By John Sfciii, Mariinez! dal. The trip to Alaska from-Tacoma through I'nget sound and the thousand islands of the Alexander archipelago is perfectly enchanting. Apart from scientific interests, no other excursion that I know of may be made into the wilds of America in which so much line and grand and novel scenery is unfolded to view. Gazing from the deck of the steamer one is borne smoothly on over the calm blue waters through the midst of a multitude of lovely islands clothed with evergreens. The ordinary discomforts of a sea voyage,so formidable to some travelers, arc not felt; for the way lies through a network of sheltered island channels that are about as free from the heaving waves that cause seasickness as rivers are. Never before the year 1879, when 1 made my first trip to Alaska, had I been amid scenery so hopelessly beyond description. It is a web of land and water thirty or forty miles wide, and about a thousand miles long, outspread like embroidery along the margin of the continent, made up of an infinite multitude of features, and all so tine and ethereal in tone the best words seem coarse and unavailing. Tracing the shining levels through sound and strait, past forests and waterfalls, between a constant succession of fair azure headlands, it seems as if surely at last you must reach the best, paradise of the poets—the land of the blessed. Some of the channels through which you glide arc extremely narrow as compared with the bight of the walls that shut them in. But, however sheer the walls, they are everywhere forested to the water's edge. And almost every individual tree may be seen as they rise above one another—the blue-green, sharply spired, Men- zies spruce: the warm yellow-green Merten spruce, with finger-like tops all pointing in one direction, or gracefully drooping; and the airy, feathery, brownish-green Alaska cedar, In such reaches you seem to be tracing some majestic river. The tide currents, the fresh driftwood brought down by avalanches, the inflowing streams, and the luxuriant over-hanging foliage of the shores, making the likeness all the more complete. But the view changes with magical rapidity. Rounding some bossy cape the steamer turns into a passage hitherto unseen, and glides through into a wide expanse filled with smaller islands 288 The, American Gsologigi. Alay, li Alakq.-r—Muir. .281*. sprinkled wide apart, of cru'sfcrriVI in grdiijis su&i/3i:'' 290 T/ie American Geologist. May, 1893 to thicken withotrt losing fta ' fineness, and vt*ryihtrtg settles Into':' ' deeper reposi Then comes the -un-et with its purple and gold, blending earth and sky everything it, the landscape in one in -cparable scene of enclutnlinenti During the winter snow falls on the fountains of the glaciers in astonishing abundance, but light A' on the lowlands of the Coast: and the temperature is seldom far below t he freezing point * Hack in the interior beyond the mountains the winter months are intensely cold, but fur and feathers and fuel abound there. The bulk of the woods is made up of two species of spruce and si cypress. The most valuable of these as to timber is the yellow cellar, or cypress; a fine tree. 100 to 150 feet high. The wood is paleyeilow. durable, and delightfully fragrant. The Menzics spruce, or --Sitka pine" is larger and far more abundant than the first. Perhaps half of the forest trees of southeastern Alaska are of this species. The graceful Morten spruce or hemlock is also very abundant. Alaska has but few pines. The hard woods are birch, maple, alder and wild apple, forming altogether a scarcely appreciable portion of the forests. In the region drained by the Yukon the principal tree is the white spruce. | saw it growing bravely on the banks of rivers that How into Kotzebue sound, forming there the extreme t'd'jf of the Arctic forests. The underbrush is mostly huckleberry, dogwood, willow, aider. salmon berry vines, and a strange-looking woody plant, about six or eight feet high, with limber rope-like steins, and heads of broad leaves like the crowns of palms. Both, the stems and leaves are armed with barbed spines. This is the Echinopana.c hnrritla. or devil's club : and it well deserves both its names. It is used by the Indians as an instrument of torture, especially in the work of correcting witches. The ground is covered with a thick felt of mosses, about as clean and beautiful as thi' sky. On this yellow carpet no dust ever settles, and in walking over it you make no mark nor sound. Tt clothes the raw earth, logs, rocks and ice warmly and kindly, stretching tintorn to the shores of the Arctic ocean. The whole country is shining with perennial streams, but none of them, from the mighty Yukon. 2,000 miles long, to the shortest torrent rushing from the coast glaciers, has been fully explored. The Stikecn. one of the best known rivers of the territory, is about 350 miles long, and draws its sources from Ala/ah jroJfyrn. ,2.9.1 •The northern "part -of trie br'Oa'd Kbeky Mound strri plat caw, lih'''o'fifm-'' puny with some of the atlhients of the Mackenzie and Yukon. It Mows first in a westerly direction, then curving southward enters d.;e. 4:,.-vi range, and. nwimps across it in a.-c-iuon that -ia -about a .hundred miles lone, and like Yosemite valley from 'end to end. To the appreciative tourist sailing up the riser the caiion is a gallery crowded with sublime and beautiful pictures, an unbroken series of iee-capped mountains, cliffs, waterfalls, lovely gardens, groves, meadows, etc. : while the glaciers pushing forward through the trees vastly enhance its sviidness and glory. Another interesting excursion mas- be made from Wrangel to the deserted village of the Stikcens! The moss-grown ruins are picturesque, and surprisingly massive and substantial considered as the work of Indians. Some of the wall planks are two and three feet wide, six inches thick, and forty feet long: while the carved timbers that support the ridge poles, and the strange totem poles, display marvelous specimens of savage art. A few good specimens may also be seen at Wrangel. Similar monuments are made by all the tribes of the archipelago. Those of the Haidahs surpass all others in size and workmanship. While the Cassiar gold mines were being developed. Wrangel was the most important town in the territory, but Juneau is now the chief mining center. Nearly all the gold of Alaska is still in the ground. Probably not one of a thousand of its veins and placers has been yet touched. The color of gold may be found in almost every stream, and hardy prospectors are seeking their fortunes in every direction. Many have already made their way into the vast region drained by the Yukon, and the developments thus far show that this northern portion of the gold belt, of the continent is at least moderately rich, ami mining may safely be regarded as one of the chief resources of'the territory. From Wrangel the steamer goes up the coast to the Taku glacier and Juneau. After passing through the picturesque Wrangel narrows you may notice a few icebergs, the first to be seen on the trip. They come from a large glacier at the head of a wild tiord near the mouth of the Stikeen. When 1. explored it eleven years ago I found difficulty in forcing a way up the front through ten or twelve miles of icebergs. My Indians told me they called this fiord " HultiA or Thunder bay, from the noise made bv the discharge of the ice. This, as far as I know, is the CbVSt The American G&ilvght. MitiMtfS Alanku.—Mu'm •2f Gre aland. After leaving Juneau, where, it is claimed, yoi may sec -'tin- largest quartz mill in the world" the steamer passes between Douglas and Admiralty islands into Lynn canal, the most sublimely beautiful and spacious of all the mountain-walled channels you have yet seen. The Auk and Eagle glaciers are displayed oil the right as you enter the canal,coming wit;! grand effect from their far-reaching fountains and down though tin: forests, but it is on the west side of the canal near the hear that the most striking feature of the landscape is seen—the J avidson glacier. It first app ars as an immense ridge of ice thrust forward into the channel, but when you have gained a position directly in front.il is shown as a broad flood issuing from a noble granite gateway, and spreading out to right and left in a beatiful fan-shaped mass, three or four miles in. width,the front of which is separated from tin- water by its terminal moraine. This is one of the most notable of the large, glaciers that are in the first stage of decadence, reaching nearly to tide water,but failing to enter it and send off icebergs. Excepting the Taku. all the great glaciers you have yet seen belong to this class. Shortly after passing the Davidson the northmost point of the trip is reached, and at the canning establishments near the month of the Chilcat riser you may learn something about salmon. Whatever may be said of other resources of the territory—timber, furs, minerals, etc.—it is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of the fisheries. Besides cod, herring, halibut and other fishes that swarm over immense areas, there are probably more than a thousand salmon streams in Alaska, in some of 0&Y3S 21U , .,- The American Geologist. May, 1893 • which ttf eei'Uin seasons there is psbfo fish than water. Once ] -asv one of mv men wade into !:.- mid-: of a crowded run and amuse himself b\ picking up the -almon and throwing them over his head tin rocks" shallows thousands could thus be taken by ha it' i in an hour or two. - The steamer now goes down the, canal, through Icy strait, and. into the wonderful Glacier bay. All the voyage thus far from Wrangel has been icy, and you have seen hundreds of glaciers great and small But this bay and the region about it.and be- vond ii towards mounl St. Elias is pre-eminently the Iceland of Alaska and the entire Pacific coast. Glancing for a moment at the results of a general exploration sve find that there are between sixty and seventy -.mail residual glaciers in the California sierra. Through Oregon and Washington, glaciers, some of them of considerable size, still exist on the highest volcanic cones of the Cascade mountains--the Three Si-ter-. mount- Jefferson, Hood, St, Helens, Adams, Tacoma, Baker, and others, though none of them approach the sea. Through British Columbia and southeastern Alaska the broad sustained chain of mountains extending along the .-oast is generally glacier bearing. The upper branches of nearly every canon are occupied by glaciers, which gradually increase in size to the northward until the lofty region between Glacier day and mount St. Elias is reached. In Prince William sound and Cook's inlet many grand glaciers are found, but farther to the westward, along the Alaska peninsula and the chain of the Aleutian islands. though a considerable number of glaciers occur on the highest peak-, they are quite small and melt far above sea-level, while to the north of latitude t2°. few, if any. remain in existence: the ground being comparatively low, and the snowfall light. The largest of the glaciers that discharge into Glacier bay is the Muir, and being also the most accessible is the one to which tourists are taken and allowed to go ashore and climb about its ice cliffs and watch the huge blue bergs as with tremendous thundering roar and surge they emerge and plunge from the majestic vertical ice-wall in which the glacier terminates. The front of the glacier is about three miles wide, but the centra! berg-producing portion, that stretches across from side to side of the inlet like a huge jagged barrier, is only about half as wide. The bight of the ice-wall above the water is from 250 to AS Aki-ska.-r~r-31mv.--. ,' 295 "*00 feet: 'hut soundings made"by 'ci/jitiilii Ciffibli shbiv that' ajjout' 720 feel of the wall is below- the surface, while still a third portion is buried beneath moraine material. Therefore, were the water and rocky detritus cleared away, a sheer wall of bine iee would be presented a mile and a half long and more than a thousand feet high. The number of bergs given off varies somewhat with the tides and weather. For twelve consecutive hours [ counted the num. ber discharged that were large enough to be heard like thunder at a distance of a mile or two, and found the rate to be one in Use or six minute-. When one of the fissured masses fall.- there is first a heavy, plunging crash, then a deep, deliberate, ling-drawn out thundering roar, followed by clashing, grating sounds from the agitated bergs set. in motion by the new arrival, and the swash of waves along the beach. All the xevy large bergs rise from the bottom with a still grander commotion, heaving aloft in the air nearly to the top of the wall, with tons of water pouring down their side-, heaving and plunging again and again ere they settle am! sail away as blue crystal islands : free at last, after being held rigid as part of the slow-crawling glacier for centuries. And strange it seems, that ice formed from snow on the mountains two and three hundred years ago. should after all its toil and travel in grinding down and fashioning the face of the landscape still remain SO lovely in color and so pure. The rate of motion of the glacier as determined last summer bv Prof. Beid is. in-ar the front, about from five to ten feet per day. This one glacier is made up of about 200 tributary glacier.-. which drain an area of about a thousand square miles, and con tains more iee than all the eleven hundred glaciers of the Alp- combined. The distance from the front back to the head of the farthest tributary is about fifty miles, and the width of the trunk below the continence of the main tributaries is twenty miles or more. I made my lirst visit to Glacier bay toward the end of October, 187!b Winter weather had set in young ice svas forming in the sheltered inlets, and the mountains had received a fresh covering of snow. It s\as then unexplored and unknown except to Indians, Vancouver,who surveyed the coast nearly a hundred years ago, missed it altogether, on account, I suppose, of bad weather and a jam of iee across its mouth. 206 Tfoe American Geotogid. tny. USii.'l -. . I had, spent the best pail of the season exploring the eauun of the Stikeen river, and a little of tie- interior region on tie- di side ,d' -nine of the -oiilherh tributaries ol the Yukon and Mackenzie It was getting rather late for new undertakings when I returned to Wrangel, I nit eagerness to see some of the glaciers to the northward, however imperfectly, drove me on, Assisted by Mr. Young, the enthusiastic Alaska missionary, I succeeded, in procuring a canoe and a crew of four Indians—Toyette, Knde- ehan, Stikeen John, and Sitka Charley. Mr. i'oung who was anxious to learn something of the numbers and condition of the Indian tribe- that might be seen on the way. agreed to go with me. Hastily gathering the necessary supplies, we set forth October I Ith. While sve were on the west shore of Admiralty island.intending to make a direct Course up Lynn canal,we learned that the Clliloat Indians were drinking and lighting, and that it would be unsafe to go among them until their quarrels were settled. I decided therefore to turn westward through ley strait and go in search of Sitka Charley's wonderful "iee mountains.'' Charley, who was the youngest of my crew, having noticed my interest in glaciers, told me that when he was a boy he had gone with his father to hunt seals in a large bay full of ice, and he thought that he could find it. On the 24th, as we approached an islam! in the middle of ley strait.Charlie said that we must procure a supply of wood there to carry with us. because beyond this the country was bare of trees. Hitherto we had picked our way by Vancouver's chart, but now it failed us. Guided by Charlie.who alone knew anything of the region.we arrived late in what is now called " Bart- lett bay." near the mouth of Glacier bay. where we made a cold camp in rain and snow and darkness. At daylight on the 25th we noticed a smoke, where we found a party of lloonah seal-hunters huddled together in a small bark hut. Here Sitka Charlie seemed lost. He declared the place had changed so much he hardly recognized it. but 1 succeeded in hiring one of the hunters to go on with us up the main Glacier bay.or • Sita-da-ka. ' as the Indians called it. The weather was stormy, cold rain fell fast, and low. dull clouds muffled the mountains, making the strange, treeless land all the more dreary and forbidding. About noon we passed the lirst of the low descending glaciers on the west side, and found a landing-place a few miles beyond it. While Alanka,:-~Mni i.r. .297 ;. camp, watt being made J. strolAd along the. hore.ei-tgerh'U'xamhc ing the fossil wood with which i; was -hewn.and watching for glimpses of the glaciers beneath the watery cloud-. Next day the storm continued, a wild southeaster was howling over the icy wilderness, and everybody wished to remain in camp. Therefore 1 set out alone to see what I might learn. Bushing on through mud and sludgy snow I gained at length a commanding outlook on a bald promontory, about 1,500 feet high. All the landscape was smothered in busy clouds, and I began to fear that 1 had climbed in vain, when at last the clouds lifted a little, and the ice-filled expanse of the bay. and the feet of the mountains that stand about it, and the imposing fronts of five of the great glaciers, were displayed. This svas my lirst general view of Glacier bay—a stern solitude of ice and snow and raw, newborn rocks, dim, dreary, mysterious i held my high ground, gained at such cost, for an hour or two, sheltering myself as best I could from the blast, while with benumbed fingers I sketched what 1. could see of the stormy landscape, and wrote a few lines in my notebook. Then I beat my way back to camp over the snow-smothered ridges and bowlder piles and mud beds, arriving about dark. Mr. Young told, me that the Indians were discouraged and would like to turn back, They feared that I had fallen, or would fall, or in some way the expedition would come to grief in ease I persisted in going farther. They had been asking him what possible motive I could have in climbing mountains in such miserable weather; and when he replied that I was seeking knowledge" Toyette remarked that Muir must be a witch to seek- knowledge in such a place. After coffee and hard-tack, while we crouched in the rain around a dull lire of fossil wood, the Indians again talked dolefully, in tones that accorded well with the growling torrents about us and the wind among the rocks and bergs; telling sad stories of crushed canoes, hunters lost in snowstorms, etc, Toyette said that he seemed to be sailing his canoe into a • :skookum house" (jail) from which there svas no escape, while the lloonah guide said bluntly that if I svas going near the noses of the ice-mountains he would not go with me. for we would all be lost by bergs rising from the bottom, as manv of his tribe had been. They seemed, to be sinking deeper into dismal dumps Obitff am. . The A merican Gmlmjii. Jfay,.189S: . , with tne.ry-lu)wl of the storm, whcu.i,reminded thorn that Bior.nwb did no; |;i-.i forever: the -un would shine again; thai with me llicv need C-ar nothing, because good luck followed me always, though for mans sears I had wandered in higher mountains than tin and in far wilder storms; that Heaven eared for us and guided us all mote than we knew. etc. This small speech did g I: With smiling reassurance Kadechan said that he liked to travel with fearless people; ami dignified Toyette declared he would venture on,for my l;wa-wa was ileiait ' (my talk was very good), We urged our was- against ice and weather to the extreme head of the liav and around it, going up one side and down the other and succeeded in reaching all the main glaciers excepting those at the head of frozen inlets. Next to the Muir, the largest of the glaciers enters the bay at its extreme northwestern extension. Its broad, majestic current, fed lis unnumbered tributaries, is divided at the front by an island, and from its long, blue wall the icebergs plunge and roar in one eternal storm, sounding on day and night, winter and summer, and from century to century. Five or six glaciers of the lirst class discharge into the bay, the number varying as the several outlets of the ice fields are regarded, as distinct glaciers, or one. About an equal number of the second class descend with broad imposing currents to the level of the day without entering it to discharge bergs; while the tributaries of these and the smaller glaciers are innumerable. The clouds cleared away on the morning of the 27th, and we had glorious views of the ice-rivers pouring down from their spacious fountains on cither hand, and of the grand assemblage of mountains immaculate in their robes of new snosv, and bathed and transfigured in the most impressively lovely sunrise light I ever beheld. Memorable, too, svas the starry splendor of a night spent on the east side of the bay, in front of two large glaciers north of the Muir. Yenus seemed half as big as the moon, while the berg-covered bay. glowing and sparkling with responsive light, seemed another sky of equal glory. Shortly after three o'clock in the morning I. climbed the dividing ridge between the two glaciers. 2,000 feet above camp, for the sake of the night views: ami how great was the enjoyment in the solemn silence between those two radiant skies no words mav tell. . - , Ala8k.-T-Muit. . .:. ;29& . -,. That, morning.wp.had.to, break. -a-way :fpr.pthe,canoe through a . sheet of ice half a mile wide,which had formed during the night, The weather holding clear, we obtained telling views of the vast expanse-of tin- Muir glacier and made many sketches. Then fearing that we might be frozen in for. t he winter .we hurried awas back through Icy strait into Lynn canal. We then visited Davidson glacier and the Indian village at the mouth of the Chilcat river, wle-n; we obtained views of three other low descending glaciers of the same rank as the Davidson. Thence, turning south, homeward bound,we parsed the Auk and Eagle glaciers, and hat- tied awhile with the bergs of Sum Bum. narrow!s-escaping being frozen among them. North of cape Fanshaw we were stormbound nearly a week ere we could visit, the great glacier near the mouth of the Stikeen. November 20th we reached Wrangel, and our iee lessons for the season were done. Next year in August I again set out from Wrangel in a canoe and made more careful examination of the glaciers in Glacier bay, and of many new ones that I discovered during the season, the most noteworthy being those of Sum Duin and the immense glacier at the head of Taylor bay to the west of Glacier bay, in crossing which I encountered some exciting adventures. Again last summer I spent two months in Glacier bav. mostly on the Muir glacier getting acquainted with its higher fountains, studying the fossil forests about it and the rich and lovely flora of the lower ridges, etc. Fain would I describe the glories of those months in the ice-world—the beautiful and terrible network of crevasses.the clustering pinnacles, the thousand streams ringing and gurgling in azure channels cut in the living body of the glacier, the glorious radiance of the sunbeams falling on crystal dale and hill.the rosy glow of the dawn and sunset,the march of the clouds on the mountains, and the mysterious splendor of the auroras when the nights grow long. etc., etc., etc. But this would require a volume,while here I have only the space to add— Go to Alaska, go and see. Oo't https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1210/thumbnail.jpg |
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