216 ICE CLIFFS GLACIERS. Jan. 



this mountain is equal to Sarmiento in height, I am not cer- 

 tain, as the measurements obtained did not rest upon satisfactory 

 data ; but the result of those measures gave 6,800 feet for its 

 elevation above the sea. This, as an abstract height, is small, 

 but taking into consideration that it rises abruptly from the 

 sea, which washes its base, and that only a short space intervenes 

 between the salt water and the lofty frozen summit, the effect 

 upon an observer's eye is extremely grand, and equal, probably, 

 to that of far higher mountains which are situated at a distance 

 inland, and generally rise from an elevated district. 



We stopped to cook and eat our hasty meal upon a low 

 point of land, immediately in front of a noble precipice of solid 

 ice ; the cliffy face of a huge glacier, which seemed to cover the 

 side of a mountain, and completely filled a valley several 

 leagues in extent. 



Wherever these enormous glaciers were seen, we remarked 

 the most beautiful light blue or sea green tints in portions of 

 the solid ice, caused by varied transmission, or reflection of 

 light. Blue was the prevailing colour, and the contrast which 

 its extremely delicate hue, with the dazzling white of other 

 ice, afforded to the dark green foliage, the almost black pre- 

 cipices, and the deep, indigo blue water, was very remarkable. 



Miniature icebergs surrounded us; fragments of the cliff, 

 which from time to time fall into a deep and gloomy basin 

 beneath the precipice, and are floated out into the channel by 

 a slow tidal stream. In the first volume the frequent falling 

 of these masses of ice is noticed by Captain King in the Strait 

 of Magalhaens, and in the narrative of my first exploring visit 

 to this arm of the Beagle Channel ; therefore I will add no fur- 

 ther remark upon the subject. 



Our boats were hauled up out of the water upon the sandy 

 point, and we were sitting round a fire about two hundred 

 yards from them, when a thundering crash shook us — down 

 came the whole front of the icy cliff — and the sea surged up in 

 a vast heap of foam. Reverberating echoes sounded in every 

 direction, from the lofty mountains which hemmed us in ; but 

 our whole attention was immediately called to great rolling waves 



