GLACIER MOVEMENT. 389 



tak, and joined him. Jensen quickly shot a deer, and 

 Hans brought us some auks ; and, before going to 

 work, we drew around a large rock, of which we 

 made a table, and partook of a substantial dinner of 

 Carl's preparation, washing it down with purest water 

 from the glacier, while listening to the music of gur- 

 gling streams and the song of birds. 



The face of the glacier had undergone much change. 

 Blocks of immense size had broken from it, and lay 

 strewn over the valley at its base ; while the glacier 

 itself had pressed down the slope, crowding rocks, and 

 snow, and the debris of ice before it in a confused, 

 wave-like heap. The progress toward the sea had 

 been steady and irresistible. 



The journey to the top of the glacier was much 

 more difficult than in the previous autumn, the snow 

 having in a great measure melted away, exposing the 

 rocks, and embarrassing us in the ascent of the gla- 

 cier's side, as well as of the gorge. Every thing was 

 wet and mucky, overhead as well as under foot. The 

 glacier-surface was shedding water from every side, 

 like the roof of a house in a February thaw ; and the 

 little streams which flowed down its side, joining the 

 waters of the melting snow, trickled underneath the 

 glacier and reappeared in rushing torrents in the val- 

 ley below from the glacier front ; and thence poured 

 into the lake, and from the lake to the sea. 



I was fortunate in finding my stakes all standing ; 

 and, having brought up the theodolite, I repeated the 

 angles which, with Sonntag, I had taken the previous 

 October. These angles, when afterwards reduced, ex- 

 hibited a descent of the centre of the glacier, down 

 the valley, of ninety-six feet. 



Chester VaUey has in former times been quite a re- 



