A RIVER VIEW 189 



sometimes enormous. I have seen the ice explode 

 with a loud noise and a great commotion in the 

 water, and a huge crack shoot like a thunderbolt 

 from shore to shore, with its edges overlapping and 

 shivered into fragments. 



When unprotected by a covering of snow, the 

 ice, under the expansive force of the sun, breaks 

 regularly, every two or three miles, from shore to 

 shore. The break appears as a slight ridge, formed 

 by the edges of the overlapping ice. 



This icy uproar is like thunder, because it seems 

 to proceed from something in swift motion; you 

 cannot locate it; it is everywhere and yet nowhere. 

 There is something strange and phantom-like about 

 it. To the eye all is still and rigid, but to the ear 

 all is in swift motion. 



This crystal cloud does not open and let the bolt 

 leap forth, but walk upon it and you see the ice 

 shot through and through in every direction with 

 shining, iridescent lines where the force passed. 

 These lines are not cracks which come to the sur- 

 face, but spiral paths through the ice, as if the 

 force that made them went with a twist like a rifle 

 bullet. In places several of them run together, 

 when they make a track as broad as one's hand. 



Sometimes, when I am walking upon the ice and 

 this sound flashes by me, I fancy it is like the 

 stroke of a gigantic skater, one who covers a mile 

 at a stride and makes the crystal floor ring beneath 

 him. I hear his long tapering stroke ring out just 

 beside me, and then in a twinkling it is half a mile 

 away. 



