GLACIERS. 559 



On tlie 12tli of August First-Lieutenant Payer, Dr. 

 Copelancl, and Peter Ellinger started to climb the glacier. 

 Payer thus describes tlie excursion : — 



" Our outfit consisted of climbing-irons, alpenstocks, 

 and an eigliteen-fathom rope. 



" The scenery of the valley was simple but imposing; 

 it consisted of massive granite walls, between which 

 tongues of ice were pressed, the torrents from which 

 formed a row of beautiful waterfalls ; mighty gateways 

 of ice, and a number of wild seracs, which depended 

 from the high glacier peaks in the background like steps. 

 Close by, in the glacier basin, which was about six 

 miles broad, from a basis 3900 feet high rose an 

 isolated pyramid of ice about 2950 feet high sheer into 

 the air. 



" At first we kept to a tolerable path, trodden by the 

 reindeer above the left bank of the stream. The end of 

 the largest valley glacier lay 875 feet above the level of the 

 sea ; and the edge of the tongue of ice, which was covered 

 with debris, was at the commencement convex, and 2950 

 feet in breadth ; then becoming concave, it widened to 

 7180 feet, and sloped, in a broken surface, down to the 

 adjacent land. 



" We took to the glacier at about 2100 feet above the 

 sea's level. Its surface, like the mountain slopes, was 

 free from snow ; and the covering of rubbish, which until 

 now had been in one connected mass, branched upwards 

 into four central moraines. The prevailing colour of the 

 ice here is whitish green ; the ice layers the same as those 

 under similar circumstances in the Alps. Very different, 

 however, is the surface of a Greenland glacier. In 

 Europe they split upon going over any mountain step, and 



