_PART THE SECOND._ PALACES OF NATURE. CHAPTER I. ICE AND SNOW. In the previous chapters we have traced the history of the Norman-Greenlanders from their first appearance to their decay. We have witnessed their early struggles, have observed them in their prosperity, and have stood beside the ruined edifices erected by their hands, and read there a mournful story of a fallen race. Upon the causes of their fall we have, however, barely speculated. Among them all, none possess an interest to equal that one mighty cause which has been silently working there for countless ages. Beside those determined Northmen, Nature herself was erecting edifices which, by destroying the life-giving heat of the atmosphere, paved the way for poverty and death. With just propriety we may call these edifices palaces of Nature; and now to examine them will be our task. To do that, we leave the fiord of “the deserted homes” and steam into one that lies to the north of it. This is called the fiord of Sermitsialik, which signifies “the place of ice.” And here we will witness phenomena such as are not to be witnessed elsewhere in the whole known world. These phenomena exhibit results grand beyond any thing in or upon the earth, not excepting the earthquake and volcano. This fiord of the ice is about of equal length with that of the “deserted homes.” The two are separated from each other by a mountain-ridge which culminates in the Redkammen. The same ridge continues to the south, and, reaching the sea again, incloses the region of Ericsfiord, and the little earthly paradise where dwelt the kings of the sea in ancient times. The mountain-ridge which thus encircles Ericsfiord like a horse-shoe has no break in it, and it is therefore a barrier. Northward of it there is another great ridge, and between the two there is a wide valley. This valley comes down to the sea at the head of the fiord of Sermitsialik, but it is not green like the valleys that lie beneath the shelter of the ridge of the Redkammen, but is filled with ice. This ice is in places more than a thousand feet in depth, and from two to four miles wide—occupying the valley completely. The ice which thus fills the valley is called a glacier. _Ice-stream_, however, the Danes distinguish it, thus marking the difference between it and the _eis blinken_, which we call the _mer de glace_, or ice-sea.