54 



THE PAEADISE OF THE CHAEADEIID^. 



Sudden 

 arrival of 

 summer. 



Desperate 

 resistance 

 of winter. 



Retreat and 

 advance of 

 winter. 



Calving of 

 icebergs. 



winter and the north wind, and had been hopelessly beaten ; but on the 1st of June an 

 alliance with the south wind was ratified. The sun retired in dudgeon behind the clouds, 

 leaving the battle in the hands of his ally, before whose blast the armies of winter vanished 

 into thin water and retreated to the pole ; the ice on the river, three or four miles wide 

 and six feet thick, was broken into a thousand pieces like fine crockery, and the snow 

 melted like butter on hot toast. Although the onward march of triumphant summer was 

 at the average rate of four miles an hour, the beaten forces of winter made many desperate 

 stands which sometimes lasted for twelve hours. Many obstacles caused a temporary 

 stoppage in the break up of the ice, such as a sudden bend in the river or a group of islands. 

 When this occurred, the river rose so rapidly that it began to flow up all its tributaries in 

 the north. During one day I calculated that at least 50,000 acres of pack-ice and ice-floes 

 had been marched up-stream past the place where we were watching this gigantic convulsion 

 of nature. But the next day the river fell again and a great part of the ice was marched 

 back again, though much of it was left stranded high and dry in the forests where the river- 

 banks were low and the country flooded. These sudden falls in the level of the water 

 were caused by the breaking up of the ice lower down the great river which dammed it up, 

 until the accumulated pressure from behind became irresistible and forced everything 

 before it — icebergs twenty to thirty feet high sometimes driving down the river at a speed 

 of from ten to twenty miles an hour, the constant roar of the crashing ice being audible for 

 miles. 



Although the river alternately rose and fell, it was constantly rising on an average, 

 and in ten days, although it was three or four miles wide, the total rise was seventy feet. 

 It was a wonderful sight to watch the armies of winter alternately advancing and retreating : 

 sometimes the pack-ice and ice-floes were so tightly jammed together that it seemed 

 possible to scramble across them to the opposite shore. At other times there was 

 much open water, and the icebergs " calved " as they went along with much commotion 

 and splashing that might be heard half a mile off'. No doubt it is the grounding of the 

 icebergs which causes this operation to take place. The icebergs are formed, in the first 

 instance, by large ice-floes, perhaps half a mile long and very broad, which move down the 

 river at the rate of four miles an hour, rush headlong against some promontory in 

 consequence of a bend in the river, and being unable to stop on account of their great 

 weight, pile themselves up on the bank in ranges of ice-mountains, which soon freeze 

 together into nearly soUd masses, and become icebergs when the river rises high enough to 

 float them off. The layers of ice piled one on the top of the other are imperfectly frozen 

 together, and in floating along, whenever the iceberg grounds, the velocity of the enormous 

 mass will not allow it to stop, so it passes on, leaving part of the bottom layer of ice 

 behind. The moment it has passed, the piece left behind rises to the surface, like a whale 

 coming up to breathe. Some of the " calves," as the natives call them, rise from a con- 

 siderable depth ; they come up with a huge splash and rock about for some time before 

 they settle down to their floating-level. 



