Here then was, in reality, the counterpart of the river-systems of other lands. From behind the granite hills the congealed drainings of the interior water-sheds, the atmospheric precipitations of ages, were moving in a mass, which, though solid, was plastic, moving down through every gap in the mountains, swallowing up the rocks, filling the valleys, submerging the hills: an onward, irresistible, crystal tide, swelling to the ocean. The surface was intersected by numerous vertical crevasses, some of considerable depth, which had drained off the melted snow.
It was midnight when the explorers approached this colossal reservoir. The sun was several degrees beneath the horizon, and afforded a faint twilight-gleam. Stars of the second magnitude were dimly perceptible in the cold, steel-blue Arctic heavens. When they were within about half a mile of the icy wall, a brilliant meteor fell before them, and, by its reflection upon the glassy surface beneath, greatly increased the magical effect of the scene; while loud reports, like distant thunder or the roll of artillery, broke at intervals from the depths of the frozen sea.
On closer inspection it was found that the face of the glacier ascended at an angle of from 30° to 35°. At its base lay a high bank of snow, and the wanderers clambered up it about sixty feet; but beyond this their efforts were defied by the exceeding smoothness of the ice. The mountains, which stood on either hand like giant-warders, were overlapped, and to some extent submerged, by the glacier. From the face of the huge ice-river innumerable little rivulets ran down the channels their action had gradually excavated, or gurgled from beneath the ice; forming, on the level lands below, a sort of marsh, not twenty yards from the icy wall. Here, in strange contrast, bloomed beds of verdurous moss; and in these, tufts of dwarf-willows were wreathing their tiny arms and rootlets about the feebler flower-growths; and there, clustered together, crouching among the grass, and sheltered by the leaves, and feeding on the bed of lichens, flourished a tiny, white-blossomed draba and a white chickweed. Dotting the few feet of green around might be seen the yellow flowers of the more hardy poppy, the purple potentilla, and saxifrages yellow, purple, and white.
The great glacier of Sermiatsialik is one of the arms, or outlets, of this immense reservoir of ice. It occupies the bed of a valley, varying from three and a half to five miles in width, and attaining at certain points a depth of upwards of three hundred and seventy feet. This valley opens upon the fiord of Sermiatsialik, which is separated from that of Julianshaab by the range of mountains culminating in the peak of Redkammen.
We owe to Dr. Hayes a lively description of the Sermiatsialik glacier, which he thinks must at some places be more than seven hundred and fifty feet in depth, overflowing the borders of the valley like a swollen torrent. For upwards of four leagues, the icebergs which throng the fiord, or gulf, are those of the glacier itself, and terminating in a wedge-like outline, disappear in the vast sea of ice expanding to right and left above the loftiest summits, and drawing irresistibly the eye to its rippled surface,—boundless, apparently, like that of ocean. As the voyager sails up the gulf, he gradually loses sight of the frozen slope, and then of the white line of the mer de glace: he finds himself in front of an immense cliff, from one hundred to two hundred feet in height, diaphanous as the purest crystals, and reflecting all the hues of heaven.
One almost shudders as one approaches this vast domain of Winter. Collecting in copious streams, the ice and snow melted on the surface of the glacier pour over its brink, forming floating clouds of spray, irradiated by rainbow colours. The din of these cascades fills the air. At intervals, the loud reports of the internal convulsions of the glacier are repeated by every echo.
The cliff is entirely vertical; but its face, far from being smooth, is broken up into an infinite variety of forms: into unfathomable cavernous hollows, symmetrical spires, ogives, pinnacles, and deep fissures, where the eye plunges into a transparent blue, which changes every second its fleeting, opaline tints; tints so soft, and yet so vivid, that they defy the skill of the artist to reproduce them. The lustre of the “dark eye of woman” is not more difficult to seize. A deep dark green, less delicate but not less splendid, colours all the recesses where the ice overhangs the waters. In the sunlight one sees the surface of these huge crystals shining with the whiteness of the purest snow; except, indeed, where recent fractures have taken place. They suggest to the mind the idea of the gleams and reflections of a piece of satin; the undulatory lustre and shifting sparkle being produced by the different angles under which the light is reflected.
But let us suppose that we have landed; with much difficulty have ascended the cliffs; and have clambered up the glacier to its very summit. The scene before us, how shall we convey to the mind of the reader?