Page:The ocean and its wonders.djvu/163

 river, which, while raging down to the sea with all its curling rapids and whirling eddies, had been arrested in an instant by the ice-king and frozen solid,—in fact, it has all the graceful lines and forms of fluidity, with all the steady, motionless aspect of solidity. It really moves, this vast body of snow; but, like the hour hand of a watch, its motion cannot be recognised, though we should observe it with prolonged, unflagging attention. We have called it a vast body of snow, but this is only comparatively speaking. It will be vaster yet before we have done with it. At present it is but a thick semi-fluid covering, lying at the bottom of this ancient arctic vale.

The brief summer ends. Much of the winter snow has been melted and returned to the sea; but much, very much more, is still lying deep upon the ground. The world's second winter comes. The first frost effectually puts a stop to all the melting and moving that we have been describing. The snow-river no longer moves—it is arrested. The water no longer percolates through the snow—it is frozen. The mass is no longer semi-fluid—it is solid ice; and the first step in the process of a glacier's formation is begun.

Thereafter this process is continued from year to year, each winter adding largely to its bulk, each summer deducting slightly therefrom. The growing mass of ice ascends the mountain-sides, swallows the rocks and shrubs and trees in its progress,