to which the giant went in
his ramble is marked by tremendous cliffs descending perpendicularly
into the water. These, at one part, are divided by a valley tilled with
a great glacier, which flows from the mountains of the interior with a
steep declivity to the sea, into which it thrusts its tongue, or extreme
end. This mighty river of ice completely fills the valley from side to
side, being more than two miles in width and many hundred feet thick.
It seems as solid and motionless as the rocks that hem it in,
nevertheless the markings on the surface resemble the currents and
eddies of a stream which has been suddenly frozen in the act of flowing,
and if you were to watch it narrowly, day by day, and week by week, you
would perceive, by the changed position of objects on its surface, that
it does actually advance or flow towards the sea. A further proof of
this advance is, that although the tongue is constantly shedding off
large icebergs, it is never much decreased in extent, being pushed out
continuously by the ice which is behind. In fact, it is this pushing
process which causes the end of the tongue to shed its bergs, because,
when the point is thrust into deep water and floats, the motion of the
sea cracks the floating mass off from that pail which is still aground,
and lets it drift away.

Now it was to these ice-cliffs that the somewhat reckless giant betook
himself. Although not well acquainted with that region, or fully alive
to the extent of the danger incurred, his knowledge was sufficient to
render him cautious in the selection of the position which should form
his outlook.

And a magnificent sight indeed presented itself when he took his stand
among the glittering pinnacles. Far as the eye could reach, the sea lay
stretched in the sunshine, calm as a mill-pond, and sparkling with
ice-jewels of every shape and size. An Arctic haze, dry and sunny,
seemed to float over all like golden gauze. Not only was the sun
encircled by a beautiful halo, but also by those lovely lights of the
Arctic regions known as parhelia, or mock-suns. Four of these made no
mean display in emulation of their great original. On the horizon,
refraction caused the ice-floes and bergs to present endless variety of
fantastic forms, and in the immediate foreground--at the giant's feet--
tremendous precipices of ice went sheer down into the deep water, while,
away to the right, where a bay still retained its winter grasp of an
ice