Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/484

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had no difficulty in wading across above the junction of the two arms. Following thence up the eastward branch as it dashed wildly down in a succession of cataracts, cutting squarely across the laminæ or strata (which lay at an angle of about 35°), I came at length to a place where the ice was much disturbed, and rose by broken steps from the plain on which I stood to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet, and right out from this wall came the rushing torrent, hissing and foaming from a monstrous tunnel, to which the Croton Aqueduct would be a pigmy. It was a strange sight. The ice was perfectly pure and transparent; and yet, out of its very heart, was pouring the muddy stream of which I have made mention, and which, although the comparison is rather remote, reminded me of the image which Virgil draws of the Tiber, when Æneas first beheld its turbid waters, pouring out from beneath the bright and lovely foliage which overspread it.

The tunnel out of which the waters poured was about ten yards wide and as many high, the supporting roof being composed of every form of Gothic arch, fretted and fluted in the most marvelous manner, and pure as the most stainless alabaster; yet the distant effect within the tunnel was quite different,—the dark stream beneath being reflected above; and truly, if I might be allowed to paraphrase a line of Dryden,—

"The muddy bottom o'er the arch was thrown."

I clambered within this tunnel as far as I could, along a slippery shelf above the tumbling waters, until the light was almost shut out behind me, but far enough to perceive that, on my right hand, other tunnels dis