142 MOVEMENT OF THE GLACIERS. 



decided to the mutual satisfaction of the learned, but 

 it is nevertheless true. Rendu truly remarks : — 



" There is a multitude of facts which would seem' 

 to necessitate the belief that the substance of glaciers 

 enjoys a kind of ductility, which permits it to mould 

 itself to the locality which it occupies, to grow thin, 

 to swell and to narrow itself like a soft paste." 



And this, true of the Alpine passes, is true also of 

 the Greenland valleys. A great frozen Hood is pour- 

 ing down the east and west slopes of the Greenland 

 continent- and, as in the Alps, what is gained in 

 height by one year's freezing is lost by the downward 

 •flow of the mobile mass. 



And this movement is not embarrassed by any ob- 

 stacle. The lower chains of hills do not arrest it, for 

 it moulds itself to their form, sweeps through every 

 opening between them, or overtops them. Valleys 

 do not interfere with its onward march, for the frozen 

 stream enters them, and levels them with the highest 

 hills. It heeds not the precipice, for it leaps over it 

 into the plain below, — a giant, frozen waterfall. 

 Winter and summer are to it alike the same. It 

 moves ever forward in its irresistible career, — a vast, 

 frozen tide swelUng to the ocean. It pours through 

 every outlet of the coast ranges, down every ravine 

 and valley, overriding every impediment, grinding 

 and crushing over the rocks ; and at length it comes 

 upon the sea. But here it does not stop. Pushing 

 back the water, it makes its own coast line ; and, 

 moving still onward, accommodating itself to every 

 inequality of the bed of the sea, as it had before done 

 to the surface of the land, filling up the wide bay or 

 fiord, expanding where it expands, narrowing where 

 it narrows, swallowing up the islands in its slow and 



