Over The Icy Levels And Over The Woods, On The
Mountains, Over The Jagged Rocks And Spires And Chasms Of The Glacier
It Boomed And Moaned And Roared, Filling The Fiord In Even, Gray,
Structureless Gloom, Inspiring And Awful.
I first struggled up in the
face of the blast to the east end of the ice-wall, where a patch of
forest had been carried away by the glacier when it was advancing.
I
noticed a few stumps well out on the moraine flat, showing that its
present bare, raw condition was not the condition of fifty or a
hundred years ago. In front of this part of the glacier there is a
small moraine lake about half a mile in length, around the margin of
which are a considerable number of trees standing knee-deep, and of
course dead. This also is a result of the recent advance of the ice.
Pushing up through the ragged edge of the woods on the left margin of
the glacier, the storm seemed to increase in violence, so that it was
difficult to draw breath in facing it; therefore I took shelter back
of a tree to enjoy it and wait, hoping that it would at last somewhat
abate. Here the glacier, descending over an abrupt rock, falls
forward in grand cascades, while a stream swollen by the rain was now
a torrent, - wind, rain, ice-torrent, and water-torrent in one grand
symphony.
At length the storm seemed to abate somewhat, and I took off my heavy
rubber boots, with which I had waded the glacial streams on the flat,
and laid them with my overcoat on a log, where I might find them on
my way back, knowing I would be drenched anyhow, and firmly tied my
mountain shoes, tightened my belt, shouldered my ice-axe, and, thus
free and ready for rough work, pushed on, regardless as possible of
mere rain.
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