90 THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, 



which, apparently boundless, stretched away toward the un- 

 known east. It was the great mer de glace of the Arctic Con- 

 tinent. 



At any subsequent period of the cruise this sight would 

 have less impressed me ; but I had never, except in the dis- 

 tance, seen a glacier. Here before us was, in reality, the 

 counterpart of the river-system of other lands. From behind 

 the granite hills the congealed drainings of the interior water- 

 sheds, the atmospheric precipitations of ages, were moving as 

 a solid though plastic mass, down through every gap in the 

 mountains, swallowing up the rocks, filling the valleys, sub- 

 merging the hills — an onward, irresistible, crystal tide, swell- 

 ing to the ocean. Cutting the surface were many vertical 

 crevasses, or gutters, some of great depth, which had drained 

 off the melted snow. 



It was midnight when we made our approach. The sun 

 was several degrees beneath the horizon, and afforded us a 

 faint twilight. Stars of the second magnitude were dimly visi- 

 ble in the northern heavens. When we were within about 

 half a mile of the icy wall, a brilliant meteor fell before us, 

 and, by its reflection upon the glassy surface beneath, greatly 

 heightened the effect of the scene ; while loud reports, like 

 distant thunder or the booming of artillery, broke at intervals 

 from the heart of the frozen sea. 



Upon close inspection we found the face of the glacier to 

 ascend at an angle of from thirty to thirty-five degrees. At its 

 base lay a high snow-bank, up which we clambered about sixty 

 feet ; but beyond this the ice was so smooth as to defy our 

 efforts. The mountains, which stood like giant gate-posts on 

 either side, were overlapped and partially submerged by the 

 glacier. From the face of this a multitude of little rivulets 

 ran down the gutters already mentioned, or gurgled from be- 

 neath the ice, and formed, on the level lands below, a sort of 

 marsh, not twenty yards from the icy wall. Here grew, in 

 strange contrast, beds of green moss ; and in these, tufts of 

 dwarf willows were twining their tiny arms and rootlets about 

 the feebler flower-growths ; and there, clustered together, 

 crouched among the grass, and sheltered by the leaves, and 

 feeding on the bed of lichens, I found a white-blossomed draba 



