THE MER DE GLACE. 147 



Vie)' de glace in a steadily flowing stream, it has at 

 length filled up the entire valley in which it rests for 

 a distance of ten miles ; and its terminal face, which, 

 as heretofore stated, is one mile across, is now two 

 miles from the sea. The angles and measurements 

 of October, 1860, were repeated in July, 1861, as I 

 shall have occasion hereafter to illustrate, and the re- 

 sult showed the rate of progress of the glacier to be 

 upwards of one hundred feet annually. It will thus be 

 seen that more than a century will elapse before the 

 front of the glacier arrives at the sea ; and since six 

 miles must be traveled over before it reaches deep 

 water, at least five hundred years will transpire before 

 it discharges an iceberg of any considerable magni- 

 tude. The movement of this glacier is much more 

 rapid than others which I have explored. From " My 

 Brother John's Glacier" the margin of the mer de 

 cflace sweeps around behind the lofty hills back of 

 Port Foulke, and comes down to the sea in a discharg- 

 ing glacier above Cape Alexander. This has a face 

 of two miles, and some small icebergs are disengaged 

 from it. Thence, after surrounding Cape Alexander, 

 embracing it as with the arm of a mighty giant, it 

 comes again into the water on its south side ; and, 

 continuing thence southward in a succession of broad 

 and irregular curves, a frozen river is poured out from 

 this great inland sea of ice through every valley of 

 the Greenland coast from Smith's Sound to Cape Fare- 

 well, and from Cape Farewell on the Spitzbergen side 

 northward to the remotest boundary of the explored. 

 Northward from " My Brother John's Glacier " it 

 makes a broad curve in the rear of the hills hitherto 

 mentioned, and opposite Van Rensselaer Harbor it is 

 between fifty and sixty miles from the sea, where 



