“Mr Dale!”
“Proof, boy. Haven’t you seen it bend when thin, and people have been on it skating?”
“Oh! ah! I’d forgotten that.”
“Well, this ice is sufficiently elastic to flow very slowly, forced down by its own weight and that of the hundreds of thousands of tons behind.”
“Oh, I say, Mr Dale—gently!” cried Saxe.
“Well, then, millions of tons, boy. I am not exaggerating. You do not understand the vastness of these places. That glacier you are looking at is only one of the outlets of a huge reservoir of ice and snow, extending up there in the mountains for miles. It is forced down, as you see, bending into the irregularities of the valley where they are not too great; but when the depths are extensive the ice cracks right across.”
“With a noise like a gun, sometimes,” interpolated the guide, who was listening intently.
“And I know, like that,” cried Saxe, pointing to a deep-looking jagged rift, extending right across the ice-torrent: “that makes a crevasse.”
“Quite correct,” said Dale.
“But stop a moment,” cried Saxe: “this is all solid-looking blue ice. It’s snow that falls on the tops of the mountains.”