“It was slowly the conviction dawned on me that I was looking upon the counterpart of the great river-system of Arctic Asia and America. Yet here were no water-feeders from the south. Every particle of moisture had its origin within the Polar Circle, and had been converted into ice. There were no vast alluvions, no forest or animal traces borne down by liquid torrents. Here was a plastic, moving, semi-solid mass, obliterating life, swallowing rocks and islands, and ploughing its way with irresistible march through the crust of an investing sea.” * * * * * When, at a later period, Dr. Kane made a closer examination of this great natural wonder, he found that previously he had not realized the full grandeur of the spectacle. He noted that the trend of the glacier was a few degrees to the west of north; and he remarks, as the peculiarity of its aspect, that it did not indicate _repose_, but activity, energy, movement. Its surface seemed to follow that of the basis-country over which it flowed. It was undulating on and about the horizon, but as it descended towards the sea it represented a broken plain with a general inclination of some nine degrees, still diminishing toward the foreground. Crevasses, which in the distance seemed like mere wrinkles, expanded as they came nearer, and were intersected almost at right angles by long continuous lines of fracture parallel with the face of the glacier. These lines, too, scarcely perceptible in the far distance, widened as they approached the sea until they formed a gigantic stairway. It seemed as though the ice had lost its support below, and that the mass was let down from above in a series of steps; and such an action is the necessary result of the heat thrown out by the soil, the excessive surface-drainage, and the constant abrasion of the sea. The indication of a great propelling agency seemed to be just commencing at the time that Dr. Kane visited the great glacier. The split-off lines of ice were evidently in motion, pressed on by those behind, but still broadening their fissures, as if the impelling action grew more and more energetic nearer the water, till at last they floated away in the form of icebergs. Long files of these detached masses might be seen, like the ranks of a stately armada, slowly sailing out into the remote sea, their separation marked by dark parallel shadows; broad and spacious avenues near the eye, but narrowed in the perspective to mere furrows. A more impressive illustration of the forces of nature it would be difficult to conceive. Dr. Kane’s view of the formation of icebergs differs considerably from that which most physicists entertain.