A SUMMER VOYAG/': TO THE ARCTIC 



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the berg until it found its equilibrium in the water, and the 

 dashing of the waves on the beach, with spray in phiccs KH) feet 

 high or more, made an impressive scene. In the narrower ti(»r(ls 

 the calving of a large berg will sometimes cause a tidal swell that 

 will raise the water 20 feet. The surface of a glacier near its 

 front is usually a mass of jagged pinnacles with deep crevas.ses 

 betwaen. Looking up the slope of the great ice-river the surface 

 beconu's smoother, and finally back on the distant hormm one 

 sees tlu> appafently smooth wliite plain of the ice-cap. A climl) 

 to the summit of a 3,000-foot mountain near the Itivdliarsuk 

 glacier gave us some idea of this great ice-ca[) and the glacial 



FACE OF ITIVDLIARSUK GLACIER 



work along its edge. As tar as the eye could reach to the north, 

 south, and east extended this smooth, white field of ice sloping 

 up from the seacoast and with an horizon line as level as that 

 of the ocean. At regular intervals along its edge could be seen 

 the crevassing at the heads of the glaciers, which were themselves 

 cut off from view by the intervening mountains. At our feet 

 the course of the ice-river was si)read out before us. winding 

 through the mountain valleys and around the nunataks or peaks 

 projecting through the ice, from each of which it drew out a long 

 moraine of rock debris. The interior ice-sheet covei-s the whole 

 of Greenland with the exception of a narrow fringe along the 

 coa.st. It rises to elevations of from 8,000 to 10,000 feet in the 



