Part 3 (2/2)

”Is that a glacier?” said Saxe, after gazing at it for a few minutes.

”Yes, lad, that's a glacier, and a better example than one generally sees, because it is so particularly clean. Glaciers are generally pretty old and dirty-looking in the lower parts.”

The guide rested upon his ice-axe, with his eyes half-closed, apparently watching the effect the glacier had upon the visitors; Dale gazed at it contemplatively, as if it were the wrinkled face of an old friend; and Saxe stared wonderingly, for it was so different to anything he had pictured in his own mind.

”Well, what do you think of it?” said Dale, at last.

”Don't quite know, sir,” said Saxe, sitting down, drawing up his knees to rest his chin, and throwing his arms about his legs. ”It wants looking at. But I'm beginning to understand now. That's the upper part of the river which runs down the valley, only up here it is always frozen. Seems rum, though, for the sun's regularly blistering my neck.”

”You have something of the idea, but you are not quite right, Saxe,”

replied Dale. ”That is the upper part of the river, and yet it is not, because it is a distinct river. You speak of it as if the river up here had become frozen. Now, it is frozen because it has never been otherwise.”

”Must have been water once, or else it couldn't have run down that narrow valley.”

”It has never been anything but ice, Saxe,” said Dale, smiling; ”and yet it has run down the valley like that.”

”Ice can't flow, because it is solid,” said Saxe dogmatically.

”Ice can flow, because it is elastic as well as solid.”

”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 creva.s.se.”

”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.”

”Yes; snow at a certain height, while lower that snow becomes rain.”

”Well, then, this valley we are looking at ought to be snow, not ice.”

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