The Formation of Icebergs. 99 



see the fall long before the roar reached our ears ; the cliffs sepa- 

 rated, and huge masses seemed to sink without a sound ; the 

 •spray thrown up as the blue pinnacles disappeared ascended 

 like gleaming rockets, sometimes as high as the tops of the cliffs, 

 and then fell back in silent cataracts of foam. Then a noise as 

 of a cannonade came rolling across the waters and echoing from 

 cliff to cliff. The roar of the glacier continues all day when the 

 air is warm and the sun bright, and is most active when the sum- 

 mer days are finest. Sometimes, roar succeeded roar, like artil- 

 lery fire, and the salutes were answered, gun for gun, Ijy the great 

 Hubbard glacier, which pours its flood of ice into the fjord a few 

 miles further northeastward. This ice-stream, most magnificent 

 of the tide-water glaciers of Alaska yet discovered, and a towering 

 mountain peak from which the glacier receives a large part of its 

 drainage, were named in honor of Gardiner G. Hul)bard, presi- 

 dent of the National Geographic Society. 



Looking across the waters of the bay, whitened by thousands 

 of floating bergs, we could see three miles of the ice-cliffs formed 

 where the Hubbard glacier enters the sea. A dark headland on 

 the shore of the mainland to the right shut off the full view of 

 the glacier but formed a strongly drawn foreground, which en- 

 hanced the picturesque effect of the scenery. The Hubbard 

 glacier flows majestically through a deep valley leading back 

 into the mountains, and has two main branches, with a smaller 

 and steelier tributary between. These branches unite to form 

 a single ice-foot extending into the bay. The western branch 

 has a, dark medial moraine down its center, which makes a bold, 

 sweeping curve before joining the main stream. There is also a 

 broad lateral debris-belt along the bases of the cliffs forming its 

 right liank. The whole surface of the united glacier, and all of 

 the white tongues running back into the mountains beyond the 

 reach of vision, are broken and shattered, owing to the steepness 

 •and roughness of the bed over which they flow. The surface, 

 where not concealed by morainal material, is snow-white ; but 

 in the multitude of crevasses the blue ice is exposed, and gives 

 a greenish-blue tint to the entire stream. Where the subglacial 

 slopes are steep, the ice is broken into pinnacles and towers of 

 the grandest description. 



On the steep mountain sides sloping toward the Hubbard 

 glacier there are more than a dozen secondary ice-streams which 

 are tributary to it. The amphitheatres in which the glacier has 



