26 GREAT GLACIER Chap. II. 



The far-off outline of glacier, seen against the eastern sky, 

 has a faint tinge of yellow : it is almost horizontal, and of 

 unknown distance and elevation ; roughly, we may estimate 

 it to be thirty or forty miles off, and 1500 or 2000 feet 

 high. 



There is an unusual dearth of birds and seals ; everything 

 around us is painfully still, excepting when an occasional 

 iceberg splits off from the parent glacier; then we hear a 

 rumbling crash like distant thunder, and the wave occasioned 

 by the launch reaches us in six or seven minutes, and 

 makes the ship roll lazily for a similar period. I cannot 

 imagine that within the whole compass of nature's varied 

 aspects there is presented to the human eye a scene so well 

 adapted for promoting deep and serious reflection, for 

 lifting one's thoughts from trivial things of everyday life to 

 others of the highest moment. 



The glacier reminds us at once of Time and Eternity — of 

 time, for we see portions of it break off to drift and melt 

 away; and of eternity, since its downward march is so 

 extremely slow, and its augmentations behind so regular, 

 that no change in its appearance is perceptible from age to 

 age. If even the untaught savages of luxuriant tropical 

 regions regard the earth merely as a temporary abode, 

 surely all who gaze upon this ice-overwhelmed region, this 

 wide expanse of "terrestrial wreck," must be similarly 

 assured that here we have no abiding place, "no continuing 

 city." 



During daytime the strong glare is very distressing, hence 

 the subdued light of midnight, when the sun just skims 

 along the northern horizon, is much the most agreeable part 

 of the twenty-four hours; the temperature varies between 

 30 and 40 of Fahrenheit. 



The drift-ice of various descriptions about us is constantly 

 in motion under the influence of mysterious surface and 



