Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/127

106 waters at a temperature of 38°, and as clear as crystal, so that the bottom could be distinctly seen. It had deep snow-banks all around it, and yet, to my surprise, musquitoes were floating on and over its surface, breeding by myriads. Some beautiful falls were situated here, walled in by huge mountains and their fragments. Many of these were enormous rocks, apparently capable of being easily set in motion by a man's power with a crowbar, so delicately were they poised upon each other. The frozen waters of winter have been doing wondrous work in throwing down these mountains. If water can find a crack in rocks, they are sure to be broken asunder.

The inventions of men give them easy power to split rocks that are massive and hard. This is done by drilling holes and entering steel wedges, which are acted upon by slight blows. Another way is to drill deep into the rock and charge with gunpowder. But God has His way of splitting rocks! He uses the little snow and rain-drops. They find their way into every recess. Crevices are at length filled with solid ice. They are enlarged; chasms now yawn; another winter, and down from their rude heights the cliffs fall, making the earth to quake in her career!

There were many, very many rocks that would be cast from their places, high up the mountains, on the next spring. A person can hardly conceive the quantity of rock that is lifted from its base every season by the freezing of water.

Never can I forget the visit I made on this excursion to the stream that runs wildly down the mountain's side, between the first and second lakelets, near Kow-tuk-ju-a—Clark's Harbour.

For one-third of a mile the stream was covered with a huge pile of snow. I crossed to the upper part of this with my Esquimaux boy, and went down to the stream itself to slake my thirst. I kneeled and drank of the sparkling waters. As I looked round before rising, what did I see? a cave of alabaster! snow-arches, numberless and incomparable! At a point where several arches commenced to spring were