uncomfortable night and watched anxiously for the dawn. Toward morning a cold wind swept down the glacier and the rain ceased. With the dawn there came indications that the storm had passed, although we were still enveloped in dense clouds and could not decide whether or not a favorable change in the weather had occurred. We were still cold and wet and the desire to return to Blossom {126} island, where all was sunshine and summer, was great. Uncertain as to what would be the wisest course, we packed our blankets and started slowly down the mountain, looking anxiously for signs that the storm had really passed. An hour after sunrise a rift in the mist above us revealed the wonderful blue of the heavens, and allowed a flood of sunlight to pour down upon the white fields beneath. Never was the August sun more welcome. The mists vanished before its magic touch, leaving here and there fleecy vapor-wreaths festooned along the mountain side; as the clouds disappeared, peak after peak came into view, and snow-domes and glaciers, never seen before, one by one revealed themselves to our astonished eyes. When the curtain was lifted we found ourselves in a new world, more wild and rugged than any we had yet beheld. There was not a tree in sight, and nothing to suggest green fields or flowery hill-sides, except on a few of the lower mountain spurs, where brilliant Alpine blossoms added a touch of color to the pale landscape. All else was stern, silent, motionless winter. The glacier, clear and white, without a rock on its broken surface, looked from a little distance like a vast snow-covered meadow. We were about a mile above the lower limit of the snow-fields, where the blue ice of the glacier comes out from beneath the névé. The blue ice was deeply buried, and could only be seen in the deepest crevasses. Across the glacier rose the angular cliffs and tapering spires of the Hitchcock range. Every ravine and gulch in its rugged sides was occupied by glaciers, many of which were so broken and crevassed that they looked like frozen cataracts. Cheered by the bright skies and sun-warmed air, we pushed on up the glacier, taking the center of the stream in order to avoid the crevasses, which were most numerous along its borders. Two or three miles above our first camp we found a place where a thin layer of broken shale covered the snow, at a sufficient distance from the steep slopes above to be out of the reach of avalanches. We there established our second camp after leaving Blossom island, dried our blankets, and spent the remainder of the day basking in the sunlight and gathering energy for coming emergencies.