520 



ARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION. 



a great way, reaching over also nearly to Hudson's Straits. From 

 the information I had previously gained, and the data furnished 

 me by my Innuit companion, I estimated the Grinnell glacier to 

 be fully 100 miles long. At various points on the north side of 

 Frobisher Bay, between Bear Sound and the Countess of War- 

 wick's Sound, I made observations by sextant, by which I determ- 

 ined that over fifty miles of the glacier was in view from and 

 southeast of the President's Seat. A few miles above that point 

 the glacier recedes from the coast, and is lost to view by the Ev- 

 erett chain* of mountains ; and, as Sharkey said, the ou-u-e-too 

 (ice that never melts) extends on wes-se-too-ad-loo (far, very far off). 

 He added that there were places along the coast below what I 

 called the President's Seat where this great glacier discharges it- 

 self into the sea, some of it large icebergs. 



From the sea of ice down to the point where the abutting gla- 

 cier arrested my advance with sledge and dogs, the ice-river or 

 arm of the glacier was quite uniform in its rounding up, present- 

 ing the appearance — though in a frozen state — of a mighty rush- 

 ing torrent. The height of the discharging face of the glacier 

 was 100 feet above the sea. 



Without doubt, the best time of the year to travel over glacier 

 mountains is just before the snows have begun to melt. The 

 winter snows are then well impacted on the glacier surface, and 

 all the dangerous cracks and water-ditches are filled up. Storms 

 and gales do good work with snow-flakes once within their fin- 

 gers. Grinnell Glacier, f a limited portion of which was visited, 

 would, in three and a half or four months' time, present quite a 

 different appearance. Now it was robed in white ; then, below 

 the line of eternal snow, it would be naked, clear, bright, flashing 

 cerulean blue meeting the eye of the observer. This contrast I 

 have seen. When on my boat- voyage up the bay in the previ- 

 ous fall, this great glacier of Kingaite heaved heavenward its 

 hoary head, supported by a body of crystal blue : on my return 

 the same was covered with its winter dress. Before the cold 

 weather sets in, all the crevices in the glacier are charged with wa- 

 ter, which, congealing, is caused to expand ; and the ice explodes 

 with a sound like loud thunder, rending the mountains and shoot- 

 ing off icebergs and smaller fragments at the various points where 

 the glacier has its arms reaching down to the sea. 



* Named after Edward Everett. For location of " Everett Chain," see Chart, 

 f This great glacier I named after Henry Grinnell. Its height, in the vicinity of 

 President's Seat, is 3500 feet. 



