The waste in
sunshine must be enormous, while in dark weather rains and winds also
melt the ice and add to the volume produced by the rain itself.
The
winds also, though in temperature they may be only a degree or two
above freezing-point, dissolve the ice as fast, or perhaps faster,
than clear sunshine. Much of the water caught in tight crevasses
doubtless freezes during the winter and gives rise to many of the
irregular veins seen in the structure of the glacier. Saturated snow
also freezes at times and is incorporated with the ice, as only from
the lower part of the glacier is the snow melted during the summer. I
have noticed many traces of this action. One of the most beautiful
things to be seen on the glacier is the myriads of minute and
intensely brilliant radiant lights burning in rows on the banks of
streams and pools and lakelets from the tips of crystals melting in
the sun, making them look as if bordered with diamonds. These gems
are rayed like stars and twinkle; no diamond radiates keener or more
brilliant light. It was perfectly glorious to think of this divine
light burning over all this vast crystal sea in such ineffably fine
effulgence, and over how many other of icy Alaska's glaciers where
nobody sees it. To produce these effects I fancy the ice must be
melting rapidly, as it was being melted to-day.
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