IN GREEN ALASKA 



the shore; we witnessed the formation of the low 

 mounds and ridges and bowl-shaped depressions 

 that so often diversify our landscapes, — all the 

 while with the muffled thunder of the falling bergs 

 in our ears. 



We were really in one of the workshops and 

 laboratories of the elder gods, but only in the gla- 

 cier's front was there present evidence that they were 

 still at work. I wanted to see them opening crevasses 

 in the ice, dropping the soil and rocks they had 

 transported, polishing the mountains, or blocking 

 the streams, but I could not. They seemed to knock 

 off work when VvC were watching them. One day I 

 climbed up to the shoulder of a huge granite ridge 

 on the west, against which the glacier pressed and 

 over which it broke. Huge masses of ice had re- 

 cently toppled over, a great fragment of rock hung 

 on the very edge, ready to be deposited upon the 

 ridge, windrows of soil and gravel and boulders 

 were clinging to the margin of the ice, but while I 

 stayed not a pebble moved, all was silence and 

 inertia. And I could look down between the glacier 

 and the polished mountain-side; they were not in 

 contact ; the hand of the sculptor was raised, as it 

 were, but he did not strike while I was around. In 

 front of me upon the glacier for many miles was a 

 perfect wilderness of crevasses, the ice was ridged 

 and contorted like an angry sea, but not a sound, 

 not a movement anywhere. 



47 



