96 THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMEBIC A, 



— broad and spacious avenues near the eye, but narrowed in 

 the perspective to mere lines. A more impressive illustration 

 of the forces of Nature can hardly be conceived. . . . 



The frozen masses before me were similar in structure to 

 the Alpine and Norwegian ice-growths. It would be foreign 

 to the character of this book to enter upon the discussion 

 which the remark suggests ; but it will be seen by the sketch, 

 imperfect as it is, that their face presented nearly all the char- 

 acteristic features of the Swiss Alps. The "overflow/' as I 

 have called the viscous overlapping of the surface, was more 

 clearly marked than upon any Alpine glacier with which I am 

 acquainted. When close to the island-rocks, and looking out 

 upon the upper table of the glacier, I was struck with the 

 homely analogy of the batter-cake spreading itself out under 

 the ladle of the housewife, the upper surface less affected by 

 friction, and rolling forward in consequence. 



The crevasses bore the marks of direct fracture and the 

 more gradual action of surface-drainage. The extensive water- 

 shed between their converging planes gave to the icy surface 

 most of the hydrographic features of a river-system. The ice- 

 born rivers which divided them were margined occasionally 

 with spires of discolored ice, and generally lost themselves in 

 the central areas of the glacier before reaching its foreground. 

 Occasionally, too, the face of the glacier was cut by vertical 

 lines, which, as in the Alpine growths, were evidently outlets 

 for the surface-drainage. Everything was, of course, bound 

 in solid ice when I looked at it ; but the evidences of torrent- 

 action were unequivocal, and Mr. Bonsall and Mr. Morton, at 

 their visits of the preceding year, found both cascades and 

 water-tunnels in abundance. 



The height of this ice-wall at the nearest point was about 

 three hundred feet, measured from the water's edge ; and the 

 unbroken right line of its diminishing perspective showed 

 that this might be regarded as its constant measurement. It 

 seemed, in fact, a great icy table-land, abutting with a clean 

 precipice against the sea. This is, indeed, characteristic of 

 all those arctic glaciers which issue from central reservoirs, or 

 mers de glace, upon the fiords or bays, and is strikingly in con- 

 trast with the dependent or hanging glacier of the ravines, 



