ON THE ORIGIN OF ICEBERGS. 161 



of nature. Developed by such a process, the 

 thousands of bergs which throng these seas should 

 keep the air and water in perpetual commotion 

 one fearful succession of explosive detonations and 

 propagated waves. But it is only the lesser 

 masses falling into deep waters which could justify 

 the popular opinion. The enormous masses of the 

 Great Glacier [of Greenland] are propelled step by 

 step, and year by year, until, reaching water 

 capable of supporting them, they are floated off, to 

 be lost in the temperatures of other regions 



" The height of the ice- wall at the nearest point 

 was about three hundred feet, measured from the 

 water's edge ; and the unbroken right line of its 

 diminishing perspective showed that this might be 

 regarded as its constant measurement. It seemed, 

 in fact, a great icy table-land, abutting with a clean 

 precipice against the sea. This is, indeed, char- 

 acteristic of all those arctic glaciers which issue 

 from central reservoirs, or mers de glace, upon the 

 fiords or bays, and is strikingly in contrast with 

 the dependent or hanging glacier of the ravines." 



Elsewhere the same writer speaks of this glacier 

 as a line of cliff, rising in a solid glassy wall to a 

 height of three hundred feet above the water-level, 

 and with an unfathomable depth below it ; and its 

 curved face, sixty miles in length, from Cape 

 Agassiz to Cape Forbes, vanished into unknown 

 space at not more than a single day's rail-road 

 travel from the pole. The interior with which it 



(451) 1 1 



