274 NORWAY. 



conclusion that it might be three or four miles from top 

 to bottom. But, after wandering the whole day up the 

 valley by the margin of the ice and carefully exploring it, 

 we were forced to believe that it must be at least eight or 

 ten miles in extent, and undoubtedly it was many hun- 

 dreds of feet thick. When we reflect that this immense 

 body of ice is only one of the many tongues which, de- 

 scending the numerous valleys, carry off the overflow of 

 the great mer de glace on the hill-tops of the interior, 

 we can form some conception of the vast tract of 

 Norwegian land that lies buried summer and winter 

 under the ice. 



There was a little blue spot in the glacier at a short 

 distance from its lower edge which attracted our atten- 

 tion. On reaching it we found that it was a hole in the 

 roof of the sub-glacial river. 



The ice had recently fallen in, and I never beheld such 

 intensely soft and beautiful blue colour as was displayed 

 in the caverns thus exposed to view, varying from the 

 faintest cerulean tinge to the deepest indigo. Immense 

 masses of rock which had fallen from the cliffs lay 

 scattered along the surface of the ice near the edge, and 

 were being slowly transported towards the sea so 

 slowly, that probably months would pass before the 

 smallest symptom of a change in position could be 

 observed. 



There were very few natives in this wild spot so few 

 that their presence did not in any appreciable degree 

 tffect the solitude and desolation of the scene. They 



