A MOSTH WITH THE MUE GLACIER. 51 



below the water could not be told accurately, but I have 

 seen bergs floating away which were certainly 500 feet in 

 length. At other times masses would fall from near the 

 summit breaking off part way down, and splashing the spray 

 up to the very top of the ice, at least 250 feet. The total 

 amount of ice thus falling off is enormous. Bergs several 

 hundred feet long and nearly as broad, with a height of from 

 twenty to sixty feet, were numerous and constantly floating 

 out from the inlet. The steamer meets such bergs a hun- 

 dred miles away. The smaller pieces of ice often so cover 

 the water of the inlet two or three miles below the glacier 

 that it is with great difficulty that a canoe can be pushed 

 through them. One of the bergs measured, was sixty feet 

 above water and about four hundred feet square. The por- 

 tion above water was somewhat irregular, so that probably a 

 symmetrical form thirty feet in height would have contained 

 it. But even at this rate of calculation the total depth 

 would be two hundred and forty feet. The cubical contents 

 of the berg would then be almost -± , ) feet. Occa- 



sionally, when the tide and wind were favorable, the inlet 

 would for a few hours be comparatively free from floating 

 ice ; at other times it would seem to be full. 



The movements of the glacier in its lower portions are 

 probably facilitated by the subglacial streams issuing from 

 the front. There are four of these of considerable size. 

 Two emerge in the inlet itself, and come boiling up, one at 

 each corner of the ice-front, making a perceptible current 

 in the bay. There are also two emerging from under the 

 ice where it passes the shoulders of the mountains forming 

 the throat of the glacier. These spout up. like fountains, 

 two or three feet, and make their way through a channel in 

 the sand and gravel of the terminal moraine for about a 

 mile, and enter the inlet 250 or 300 yards south of the ice- 

 front. These streams are perhaps three feet deep and from 

 twenty to forty feet wide, and the current is very strong, 

 since they fall from 150 to 250 feet in their course of a mile. 

 It is the action of the suborlaeial streams neai the corners of 



