Part 33 (1/2)

On one occasion the Hassler encountered one of those sudden and startling flaws of wind co all day, increased with sudden fury just as the vessel was passing through a rather narrow channel, which gave the wind the additional force of compression In an inconceivably short time, the channel was lashed into a white foareat you could not hear yourself speak, though the hoarse shout of co cry of the sailors rose above the storm To add to the confusion, a loose sail slatted as if it would tear itself in pieces, with that sharp, angry, rending sound which only a broad spread of loose canvas can ainst the a power of the blast, and the Captain turned her round with the intention of putting her into Borja Bay, not far froood fortune, she chanced to be As she ca, it seemed as if she must be blown over, so violently did she careen

Once safely round, she flew before the wind, which now became her ally instead of her enemy, and by its aid she was soon abreast of Borja Bay Never was there a more sudden transition from chaos to peace than that which ensued as she turned in from the tumult in the main channel to the quiet waters of the bay The Hassler almost filled the tiny harbor shut in between mountains She lay there safe and sheltered in breathless caled and howled outside These frequent, alators in these straits; but after this day's experience, it was easy to understand how sailing vessels gling vainly to make a few miles and constantly driven back by sudden squalls

In this exquisite mountain-locked harbor, the vessel eather-bound for a couple of days Count Pourtales availed himself of this opportunity to ascend one of the suht of fifteen hundred feet, the rock was characterized by the s his whole route in the Strait Above that height all was broken and rugged, the line of separation being as defined as on any valley wall in Switzerland It was again impossible to decide, on such short observation, whether these effects were due to local glacial action, or whether they belonged to an earlier general ice-period

But Agassiz became satisfied, as he advanced, that the two sets of phenoeneral aspect of the opposite walls of the Strait confirmed him in the idea that the sheet of ice in its for its way against and over the southern wall to the plains beyond In short, he was convinced that, as a sheet of ice has covered the northern portion of the globe, so a sheet of ice has covered also the southern portion, advancing, in both instances, far toward the equatorial regions His observations in Europe, in North A chapter

With these facts in his mind, he did not fail to pause before Glacier Bay, noted for its ilacier, which seee sheer down into the waters of the bay A boat party was soon forlacier

It proved less easy of access than it looked at a distance A broad belt of wood, growing, as Agassiz afterward found, on an accumulation of old terminal h this wood there poured a glacial river, elacier-washed forest, touching the ice on one side and the sea on the other, was full of flowers The red bells of the glossy-leaved Desfontainia, the lovely pink blossoms of the Phylesia, the criht relief froround of , round,--a etation, in which one sank knee-deep,--the gleah the trees; and issuing frolacier wall, stretching across the whole valley and broken into deep rifts, caves, and crevasses of dark blue ice The glacier was actually about a mile wide; but as the central portion was pressed forward in advance of the sides, the whole front was not presented at once It formed a sharp crescent, with the curve turned outward One of the caves in this front as soh, about a hundred feet deep, and two or three yards wide at the entrance At the further end it narrowed to a allery, where the roof was pierced by a circular , quite syh which one looked up to the blue sky and drifting clouds There e effects in this ice-cavern, when the sun is high and sends a shaft of light through its oneto illuminate the interior

This first excursion was a mere reconnaissance An approxilacier, and some details of its structure, were obtained on a second visit the following day The anchorage for the night was in Playa Parda Cove, one of the ellan Strait It is entered by a deep, narrow slit, cut into theat its farther end into a kind of pocket or basin, he by snow and ice-fields The next ht was fading before the dawn, and theday, the reveille was sounded for those ere to return to Glacier Bay

This tiassiz divided his force so that they could act independently of each other, though under a general plan laid out by him M de Pourtales and Dr Steindachner ascended the e, in the hope of reaching a position froth of the glacier In this they did not succeed, though M de Pourtales estith, as far as he could see from any one point, to be about three e It e massif of mountains, and fed by many a neve on their upper slopes The depth as well as the length of this glacier remains somewhat problematical, and indeed all the estimates in so cursory a survey must be considered as approxilazed surface of the ice is an impediment to any exa from brink to brink of a crevasse, as is so constantly done by explorers of Alpine glaciers where the edges of the cracks are often snowy or granular Here the edges of the crevasses are sharp and hard, and to spring across one of any size would be alrappling point for hands or feet Any investigation from the upper surface would, therefore, require special apparatus, and ive Neither was an approach frolacier arches so much in the centre, and slopes away so steeply, that when one is in the lateral depression between it and the mountain, one faces an almost perpendicular wall of ice, which blocks the vision completely M

de Pourtales measured one of the crevasses in this wall, and found that it had a depth of so frolacier, it can hardly be less in the centre than two or three ti over two hundred feet, therefore Probably none of these glaciers of the Strait of Magellan are as thick as those of Switzerland, though they are often h, the valleys not so deep, as in the Alps; the ice is consequently not packed into such confined troughs By some of the party an atte been adjusted the day before for itsthe middle of the day, it advanced at the rate of ten inches and a fraction in five hours One such isolated observation is of course of little coassiz reserved the study of the bay, the ancient bed of the glacier in its for about the bay in the steaate His first care was to exalacier must once have moved Every characteristic feature, known in the Alps as the work of the glaciers, was not only easily recognizable here, but as perfectly preserved as anywhere in Switzerland The rounded knolls to which De Saussure first gave the name of roches rooved in the direction of the iceeneral trend of the scratches and furrows showed them to have been continuous from one knoll to another The furroere of various dimensions, sometimes shallow and several inches broad, so into mere lines on a very smoothly polished surface Even the curious notches scooped out of the even surfaces, and technically called ”coups de gouge,” were not wanting In some places the seams of harder rock stood out for a quarter of an inch or so above adjoining decomposed surfaces; in such instances the dike alone retained the glacial marks, which had been worn away from the softer rock

The old assiz examined with especial care one colossal lateralabout two miles below the present terminus of the ice and five hundred feet above the sea-level It consisted of the same rocks as those found on the present tere, angular boulders rested above the sh in the valley wall, and holds back the waters of a beautiful lake, about a thousand feet in length and five hundred in width, shutting it in just as the Lake of Meril in Switzerland is held in its basin by the glacier of Aletsch There are erratics so that the glacier must have been more than five hundred feet thick when it left this accuht It then united, however, with a large glacier lacier, is no doubt e moraine which shuts in the lake The direct connection of this lacier in its former extension is still further shown by two otherthe same relation to the present terminus of the ice The lower of these is only one hundred and fifty feet above the actual level of the glacier These three moraines occur on the western slope of the bay The eastern slope is more broken, and while the rounded knolls are quite as distinct and characteristic, the erratics are ical character they agree with those on the western wall of the bay Upon the summits of some small islands at the entrance of the bay, there are also solacier when it reached the er than now

Thethe advance and retreat of the glacier within certain limits, are shown by the successive moraines heaped up in advance of the present terlaciers, is greater than the lateral, the ice being pushed forward in the middle faster than on the sides But there would seeression in this broad h the centre is pushed out beyond the rest, the terminal wall does not present one uniforles or folds A few feet in front of this wall is a ridge of looseexactly the outline of the ice where it now stands; a few feet in advance of this, again, is another ridge precisely like it; still a few feet beyond, another; and so on, for four or five concentric zigzag crescent-shaped moraines, followed by two others erthe present glacier froht distinct lacier and the belt of wood, and four concentric lacier has ploughed into the forest within soin are loosened and half uprooted, though not yet altogether decayed In the presence of the glacier one ceases to wonder at the effects produced by so powerful an agent This sheet of ice, even in its present reduced extent, is about a th, and at least two hundred feet in depth Moving forward as it does ceaselessly, and ar of stones, pebbles, and gravel, firrind, furrow, round, and polish the surfaces over which it slowly drags its huge weight At once destroyer and fertilizer, it uproots and blights hundreds of trees in its progress, yet feeds a forest at its feet with countless strearinds the rocks to powder in itssoil, to the wooded shore below

Agassiz would gladly have stayed longer in the neighborhood of Glacier Bay, and have made it the central point of a lacial pheno, and already gave signs of its approach At dawn on the 26th of March, therefore, the Hassler left her beautiful anchorage in Playa Parda Cove, six large glaciers being in sight fro had a new scientific interest for Agassiz, because the vessel kept along the northern side of the Strait, while the course hitherto had been nearer the southern shore He could thus better compare the differences between the talls of the Strait The fact that the northern wall is more evenly worn, nificance for hi with like facts in Switzerland, and showing that the ice-sheet had advanced across the Strait with greater force in its ascending than in its descending path The north side being the strike side, the ice would have pushed against it with greater force Such a difference between the two sides of any hollow or depression in the direct path of the ice is well known in Switzerland

Later in the day, a pause was made in Chorocua Bay, where Captain Mayne's chartinto the water

There is, indeed, a large glacier on its western side, but so inaccessible, that any examination of it would have required days rather than hours No one, however, regretted the afternoon spent here, for the bay was singularly beautiful On either side, deep gorges, bordered by richly-wooded cliffs and overhung by ice and snow-fields, were cut into the ht lead, into what dim recesses of ocean and mountain, could only be conjectured The bay, with all its inlets and fiords, was still as a church Voices and laughter seemed an intrusion, and a louder shout came back in echoes from far-off hidden retreats Only the swift stealassy surface of the water with their arrow-like wake From this point the Hassler crossed to Sholl Bay, and anchored at the entrance of Smythe's Channel As sunset faded over the snow e, their white reflection lay like marble in the water

CHAPTER 24

1872: AGE 65

Picnic in Sholl Bay

Fuegians

Smythe's Channel

Coellan

Ancud

Port of San Pedro

Bay of Concepcion

Three Weeks in Talcahuana

Collections

Geology

Land Journey to Santiago

Scenes along the Road

Report on Glacial Features to Mr Peirce

Arrival at Santiago