551 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1865 - 66 . 
lar rents, becomes a tumbled mass of ruin. Last summer these 
cliffs of granular loose textured ice in some places overhung the 
waves. But the dark rock was likewise seen peering out along the 
water’s edge, underneath the ice, which does not push its way out 
to sea in a mass, but ends abruptly where it meets the water. From 
these icy walls fragments and large slices break off, and fall either 
on the margin of rock or into the fjord, which is thus covered 
with hundreds of miniature icebergs, slowly drifted downwards 
against wind and tide, by the surface current of freshwater. This 
process is called “calving” by the natives, and so great is the 
commotion sometimes produced, that according to the information 
collected by Von Buch, the Lapp huts along the margin of the 
fjord are sometimes inundated by the waves propagated outwards 
from the falling masses. The floating fragments of ice look like 
little models of Arctic bergs ; their forms are often singularly fan- 
Fig. 8. — Section of Foot of Jokifl’s Fjord Glacier. 
tastic ; they may be seen shifting their position, and even capsizing, 
as their submerged parts melt away; some of them carry stones 
and earth on their surface; and many are aground along the margin 
of the fjord, and rise and fall with the tide, or the ripple of the 
waves. We passed two or three which were from 8 to 10 feet 
long, and rose from 3 to 4 feet out of the fjord. Our boat grated 
against several, which seemed only a foot or two in size, yet the 
shock of the collision shewed how much larger was the portion 
concealed under water. 
To the east of the upper glacier the snow-field sends another 
icy stream down the face of the shelving precipices which descend 
into a higher valley. We could hear the roar of the avalanches 
even when the glacier itself became hidden behind the intervening 
spur of the mountain. From the rocky declivities of the Jokul’s 
Fjord also, stones were heard and seen bounding from point to 
4c 
VOL. V. 
