Early one morning, while traveling over the torrent-swept bowlders in the stream-bed on our way up Floral pass, we were a little startled at seeing the head of a bear just visible through the flowers fringing the bank. Before a shot could be fired, he vanished, and remained perfectly quiet among the bushes for several minutes. But a trembling of the branches at length betrayed his presence, and a few minutes later he came out in full view, his yellow-brown coat giving him the appearance of a huge {110} dog. Standing on a rounded mound he looked inquiringly down the valley, with his shaggy side in full view. I fired--but missed my aim. The unsuccessful hunter always has an excuse for his failure; I had never before used the rifle I carried, and the hair-trigger with which it was provided deceived me. Fortunately for the bear, and probably still more fortunately for me, the bullet went far above the mark. The huge beast vanished again, although the vegetation was not dense, and left us wondering how such a large animal could disappear so quickly and so completely in such an open region. On searching for his tracks, we found that he had traversed for a few rods the plant-covered terrace on which he was first discovered, and then escaped up a lateral gorge to a broader terrace above. Reaching the head of the Floral pass and climbing the hill of débris bordering the Hayden glacier, we came out upon the clear, white ice of the central portion of the ice-stream. The ice was greatly crevassed, but nearly all the gaps in its surface could be crossed by jumping or else by ice-bridges. The most interesting feature presented by the glacier was the way in which it yields itself to the inequality of the rocks over which it flows. Starting on the eastern side, below the entrance to Floral pass, and extending northwestward diagonally across the stream, there is a line of steep descent in the rocks beneath, which causes the ice to be greatly broken. This is not properly an ice-fall, except near the confining walls of the cañon; but it might be called an ice-rapid. The ice bends down over the subglacial scarp with many long breaks, but does not form pinnacles, as in many similar instances where the descent is greater, and true ice cascades occur. The most practicable way for crossing the glacier was to ascend the stream above the line of rapids for some distance, and then follow diagonally down its center, finally veering westward to the opposite bank. By following this course, and making a double curve like the letter S, we could cross the steep descent in the center, where it was least crevassed.