Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/277

258 half or four months' time, present quite a different appearance. Now it was robed in white; then, below the line of eternal snow, it would be naked,—clear, bright, flashing cerulean blue meeting the eye of the observer. This contrast I have seen. When on my boat-voyage up the bay in the previous fall, this great glacier of Kingaite heaved heavenward its hoary head, supported by a body of crystal blue: on my return the same was covered with its winter dress. Before the cold weather sets in, all the crevices in the glacier are charged with water, which, congealing, is caused to expand; and the ice explodes with a sound like loud thunder, rending the mountains and shooting off icebergs and smaller fragments at the various points where the glacier has its arms reaching down to the sea. After some time spent on the glacier, of which my view was not so extensive or protracted as it would have been but for the clouds that capped the heights where we were, my companion and myself returned to the sledge. I then walked to the shore and obtained a few geological specimens, and we started on our way back to the ninth encampment. Two or three miles from the glacier we came to a small island. I took several bearings of distant objects and sextant angles for elevation of the mountain heights; but the wind began to freshen almost to a gale, and caused considerable risk in crossing the bay. There was a probability of the floe cracking off and drifting us to seaward; the open water was within a mile of our course, and the floe, giving way, would have been swept rapidly to the south-east. My driver was constantly urging the dogs to their greatest speed while making passage over the most dangerous part of the way. Fortunately no mishap occurred, and we arrived at the tupic in the evening.