140 MY ARCTIC JOURNAL 



Swiss Matterhorn, and we named it the Little Matterhorn. 

 We were in an Alpine landscape, but the more striking fea- 

 tures of the European ice-covered mountains were here brought 

 out in increased intensity. Arrived at the head of the gulf, 

 we were confronted by one of the grandest glaciers that we 

 had yet seen. 



Never shall I forget my impressions, as, on this bracing 

 April day, with the thermometer from 30° to 35° below zero, 

 Mr. Peary and I, shod with snow-shoes, climbed over the deep- 

 drifted snow to the summit of a black rock, destined in a few 

 years to be engulfed by the resistless flow of the glacier, and 

 from this elevated point looked out across the mighty stream 

 of ice to the opposite shore, so distant as to be indistinct, even 

 in the brilliant spring sunshine that was lighting all the scene. 

 Looking up the glacier, the vast ice river disappeared in the 

 serene and silent heights of the ice-cap. To think that this 

 great white, apparently lifeless, expanse, stretching almost 

 beyond the reach of the eye, is yet the embodiment of one of 

 the mightiest forces of nature, a force against which only the 

 iron ribs of mother-earth herself can ofTer resistance! As we 

 stood there silent, a block of ice larger than many a pretentious 

 house, yet but an atom compared with the glacier itself, pushed 

 from its balance by the imperceptible but constant mo\-ement 

 of the glacier, fell with a crash from the glacier face, sending 

 the echoes flying along the ice-cliffs, crushing through the thick 

 bay ice, and bringing the dogs, far below us, to their feet with 

 startled yelps. 



