732 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



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 

 mile in width, several miles in length, and at 

 least two hundred feet in depth. Moving 

 forward as it does ceaselessly, and armed be- 

 low with a gigantic file, consisting of stones, 

 pebbles, and gravel, firmly set in the ice, 

 who can wonder that it should grind, furrow, 

 round, and polish the surfaces over which it 

 slowly drags its huge weight. At once de- 

 stroyer and fertilizer, it uproots and blights 

 hundreds of trees in its progress, yet feeds 

 a forest at its feet with countless streams ; it 

 grinds the rocks to powder in its merciless 

 mill, and then sends them down, a fructifying 

 soil, 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 more detailed 

 examination of the glacial phenomena in the 

 Strait. But the southern winter was opening, 

 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 

 from her deck as she came out. The scenery 

 during the morning had a new scientific in- 



