THE GLACIERS OF GREENLAND. 3 



ment of some eight hundred to a thousand feet in one or more of 

 the Swiss glaciers conjured up visions of vast possibilities in the 

 Greenland giants, yet nowhere could I satisfy myself that even 

 that thickness which was measured in the Alps was to be found 

 here. Perhaps in the far interior the ice may have that thickness 

 and more, but on the tongue sheets and in their terminal walls 

 we found no indications of it. Two or three hundred feet the 

 ice certainly has, but how much more, if anything, I could not 

 determine. Yet the majestic bergs which, flotilla-like, sail out 

 from these slow-moving rivers of ice, and scatter themselves in 

 hundreds and thousands over the blue mirror of the sea, rise in 

 themselves full two hundred feet out of the water, and perhaps 

 not less than seven or eight hundred feet of subaqueous anchor- 

 age gives to them that wonderful aspect of immobility which all 

 who have seen it so much admire. Is the exact relation of the 

 fallen berg to its parent still to be determined ? Seemingly so, 

 for it is certain that in perhaps by far the greater number of 

 oases the height of the berg bears no distinct relation to the thick- 



SURFACE OF VeEHOEFF GlACIEE. 



ness of the glacier of which it at one time formed a part. With 

 my own eyes I saw but few bergs fall or being made, and these 

 were all of insignificant dimensions. Like many of their larger 

 sisters which undergo disruption, they lashed and foamed in the 

 disturbed waters, rising serenely to no definite relation with the 

 parent mass from which they parted. 



The older accounts of travelers have invested the Greenland 

 ice with a wicked sublimity particularly its owu, which may be 



