ir parent sea.

The formation of icebergs has, as we have said, puzzled mankind for many
years. Their existence has long been known: for, even before men dared
to venture their lives in the polar regions, navigators, in crossing the
Atlantic Ocean, frequently met with these marble-like mountains; and,
what is worse, sometimes ran at full speed against them, and were sunk
with all on board. Bergs are frequently enveloped in dense fogs, caused
by the cold atmosphere by which they are surrounded condensing the
moisture of the warmer atmosphere which they encounter on their voyage
southward; hence they are exceedingly dangerous to navigation. But now
to speak of their formation.

Many of the great valleys of the far north are completely filled up with
solid ice. Observe, we do not say that they are merely covered over
with ice; they are absolutely filled up with it from top to bottom.
Those ice-masses are known by the name of glaciers; and they are found
in most of the elevated regions of the Earth,--on the Alps and the
mountains of Norway, for instance,--but they exist in greater abundance
about the poles than elsewhere.

Glaciers _never_ melt. They have existed for unknown ages, probably
since the world began; and they will, in all likelihood, continue to
exist until the world comes to an end,--at least until the present
economy of the world terminates. They began with the first fall of
snow, and as falls of snow during the long winters of the polar regions
are frequent and heavy, the accumulated masses are many feet deep,
especially in places where drifts are gathered--sometimes fifteen,
twenty, thirty, and even forty feet deep. The summer sun could not melt
such drifts entirely. New snow was added each winter, until the valleys
of the far north were filled up; and so they remain filled up to this
day.

In order to understand the nature of glaciers clearly, let us turn back
to those remote ages that rolled over this Earth long before man was
created. Let us in spirit leap back to the time when no living creature
existed, even before the great mastodon began to leave his huge
foot-prints on the sands of time.

We have reached one of the large valleys of the arctic regions. It is
solemn, grand, and still. No merry birds, no prowling creatures, are
there to disturb the universal calm. The Creator has not yet formed the
living creatures and pronounced them "very good." It is the world's
first winter. As w