The glacier by which I had ascended to the _mer de glace_ furnishes a fine illustration of growth and movement as I have described it. Coming down from the _mer de glace_ in a steadily flowing stream, it has at length filled up the entire valley in which it rests for a distance of ten miles; and its terminal face, which, as heretofore stated, is one mile across, is now two miles from the sea. The angles and measurements of October, 1860, were repeated in July, 1861, as I shall have occasion hereafter to illustrate, and the result showed the rate of progress of the glacier to be upwards of one hundred feet annually. It will thus be seen that more than a century will elapse before the front of the glacier arrives at the sea; and since six miles must be traveled over before it reaches deep water, at least five hundred years will transpire before it discharges an iceberg of any considerable magnitude. The movement of this glacier is much more rapid than others which I have explored. From "My Brother John's Glacier" the margin of the _mer de glace_ sweeps around behind the lofty hills back of Port Foulke, and comes down to the sea in a discharging glacier above Cape Alexander. This has a face of two miles, and some small icebergs are disengaged from it. Thence, after surrounding Cape Alexander, embracing it as with the arm of a mighty giant, it comes again into the water on its south side; and, continuing thence southward in a succession of broad and irregular curves, a frozen river is poured out from this great inland sea of ice through every valley of the Greenland coast from Smith's Sound to Cape Farewell, and from Cape Farewell on the Spitzbergen side northward to the remotest boundary of the explored. Northward from "My Brother John's Glacier" it makes a broad curve in the rear of the hills hitherto mentioned, and opposite Van Rensselaer Harbor it is between fifty and sixty miles from the sea, where it was reached by Mr. Wilson and myself, as before stated. Its first appearance upon the coast in that direction is at the head of Smith's Sound, in the great Humboldt Glacier, which is reputed to be sixty miles across. Beyond this it presses upon Washington Land, and thence stretches away into the region of the unknown. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. MY CABIN.--SURVEYING.--CASTOR AND POLLUX.--CONCERNING SCURVY.--DANGERS OF EATING COLD SNOW.--KNORR AND STARR.--FROST-BITES.--HANS, PETER, AND JACOB AGAIN.--COAL ACCOUNT.--THE FIRES.--COMFORT OF OUR QUARTERS.--THE HOUSE ON DECK.--MILD WEATHER.--JENSEN.--MRS. HANS.--JOHN WILLIAMS, THE COOK.--A CHEERFUL EVENING. After a sound sleep had in some measure worn off the fatigues of the journey on the glacier, I returned to my diary:-- October 28th. [Sidenote: MY CABIN.]