Muir Glacier, Alaska

Abstract

The first known of that greatest of Alaska's wonders, the Muir glacier, was reported in the account of Van couver's explorations about Sitka in 1794, where he de scribes what is supposed to have been Glacier Bay as completely filled with ice and "terminated by compact, solid mountains of ice rising perpendicular from the water's edge."In 1879 the glacier was first described by Prof. John Muir, who spent some days wandering over the ice, a blanket and a few biscuits on his back and only the ominous roar of the sub-glacial waters to break the solitude.His vivid description, seconded by the tales told by Dick or "Professor" Willoughby, an old hunter of that region, led the steamer company to explore the bay, and now every steamer makes the ext r a journey of fifty miles necessary to allow its load of tourists to set foot on this great frozen sea.As the steamer turns into Glacier Bay, what a marvelous sight ap pears