448 
glaciers: 
sea, and sweeping round to another headland of simi- 
lar elevation, we made a rude approximation to the 
height of the glacier hetween : it was ahout seven hund- 
red feet at the coast-line. Following it hack from the 
sea with an excellent Fraunhofer telescope, we could 
see it rising slowly hy a gradual talus till it was lost 
in the distance. Its undulations over the buried coun- 
try, which it overlaid like a great tombstone, were 
marked by considerable diversity of surface. They 
were occasionally furrowed by ravines, indicating wa- 
ter action ; and in these, wherever the cliffs protruded, 
a long earthen stain, garnished probably with detrited 
rubbish, extended down like the lines of a moraine. 
Sometimes the surface was smooth and unmarred ; but 
more commonly, and especially on the faces of more 
abrupt descent, I recognized the crevasse character 
which I have noted in the bergs. I also observed es- 
carpments of ice in some instances, great mural faces, 
beyond which the glacier was continued again ; but 
these were rare. 
The general color of the glacier, like that of the 
berg, was a dead white, varied only a little by alterna- 
tions of light and shadow; and through this the higher 
land peaks rose like dark knobs. In two places I no- 
ticed a land spur, extending at right angles to the 
axis of the chain until it reached the sea, and thrust- 
ing itself boldly through the ice to the water-line, 
flanked on each side by the glacier face. 
I thought too, though my observations with the 
glass were too rude to assure me of their correctness, 
that I could trace, in the general configuration of this 
great ice-surface, delta-like divisions, such as might 
be induced by surface streams expanding and divari- 
cating as they approached the sea. In fact, hosts of 
