VIII. ] GLA CIERS. 1 29 



6,870 feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapour, from 

 underneath whose floating folds seven enormous glaciers 

 rolled down into the sea ! Nature seemed to have turned 

 scene-shifter, so artfully were the phases of this glorious 

 spectacle successively developed. 



Although — by reason of our having hit upon its side 

 instead of its narrow end — the outline of Mount Beerenberg 

 appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire — broader 

 at the base and rounder at the top than I had imagined, — 

 in size, colour, and effect, it far surpassed anything I had 

 anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected element 

 of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a volume as 

 the Thames — started down the side of a mountain, — 

 bursting over every impediment, — whirled into a thousand 

 eddies, — tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge in 

 quivering cataracts of foam, — then suddenly struck rigid by a 

 power so instantaneous in its action, that even the froth and 

 fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened into the immutability 

 of sculpture. Unless you had seen it, it would be almost 

 impossible to conceive the strangeness of the contrast 

 between the actual tranquillity of these silent crystal rivers 

 and the violent descending energy impressed upon their 

 exterior. You must remember, too, all this is upon a scale 

 of such prodigious magnitude, that when we succeeded sub- 

 sequently in approaching the spot — where with a leap like 

 that of Niagara one of these glaciers plunges down into the^ 

 sea — the eye, no longer able to take in its fluvial character, 

 was content to rest in simple astonishment at what then 

 appeared a lucent precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the 

 height of several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel. 



As soon as we had got a little over our first feelings of 

 astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed to us 

 by the lifting of the fog, I began to consider what would be 

 the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west — or 

 Greenland side of the island. We were still seven or eight 

 miles from the shore, and the northern extremity of the 

 island, round which we should have to pass, lay about five 



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