CLIMBING THE GLACIER. 437 



charged into this main sewer, as the underground cul- 

 verts which drain into the main artery the refuse of a 

 city. 



Returning to the open air, I pursued my way up 

 the glacier for a couple of miles further, and discov- 

 ered that this stream had its origin in the mountain 

 on the right, where the melting snows rolled over the 

 rocky slope, evidently by a newly formed channel, 



for the water was tearing through moss-beds and de- 

 cs o 



posits of sand and silt, and, rushing thence on the gla- 

 cier, tumbled headlong hundreds and hundreds of 

 feet, down into a yawning chasm. This chasm or cre- 

 vasse no doubt extended to the bottom of the glacier, 

 and the water, after winding along the rocky bed 

 under the ice, finally has found its way into the 

 cracks formed by the ice in its descent over a steep 

 and rugged declivity, and has slowly worn away the 

 tunnels or culverts which I have described. 



I had now come to the gorge in the mountain 

 through which the glacier descends to the sea. The 

 view of the glacier from the margin is, at this point, 

 somewhat like what I fancy the mer de glace at Trela- 

 porte, in the Alps, would be if the Grande Jorasse 

 and Mont Tacul, and the other mountains which 

 form the cradle for the glacier de Lechaud and the 

 glacier dn Giant, and their tributaries, were all leveled. 

 Instead of the variety disclosed in the Alpine view, 

 the eye lights here upon one expanding stream 

 instead of many streams, which narrows as it ap- 

 proaches the pass until it is about two miles over ; 

 thence descending the steep declivity to the sea, 

 breaking up as it moves over the rougher places in 

 the manner before described. 



In all my glacier experience I had not seen any 



