and any one of the fifteen subdivisions of the glacial stream is as large
as the Great Rhone glacier.
Underlying this great ice field is that glacial river which bears these
mountains of ice on its bosom to the ocean. With a roar like distant
artillery, or an approaching thunder-storm, the advancing walls of this
great monster split and fall into the watery deep, which has been sounded
to a depth of some 800 feet without finding anchor.
The glacial wall is a rugged, uneven mass, with clefts and crevices,
towering pinnacles and domes, higher than Bunker Hill monument, cutting
the air at all angles, and with a stupendous crash sections break off
from any portion without warning and sink far out of sight. Scarcely two
minutes elapse without a portion falling from some quarter. The marble
whiteness of the face is relieved by lines of intense blue, a
characteristic peculiar to the small portions as well as the great.
Going ashore in little rowboats, the vast area along the sandy beach was
first explored, and it was, indeed, like a fairy land. There were acres
of grottoes, whose honey-combed walls were most delicately carved by the
soft winds and the sunlight reflections around and in the arches of ice,
such as are never seen except in water, ice, and sky.