t. 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, until its body becomes a
thousand feet thick: the extreme summits of the mountain-peaks alone
tower above the snowy waste, and the mass at the bottom is now, by the
pressure of superincumbent masses, pure ice, hard and clear as crystal.

When the great glacier grows old it still maintains its stealthy
downward motion during every summer. It has reached the shore, and has
been pushed, like a huge white tongue, out into the sea.

"But what has all this to do with icebergs?" it may be inquired. Much,
very much. It is common enough, in commenting on a child, to speak of
the parent. The glacier is the _mother_ of the iceberg.

When, in the world's early morning, the embryo glacier reached the sea,
its thin edges were easily broken off by the waves; but as it increased
and still further encroached, these edges became thicker and thicker,
until at last a wall of pure ice, several hundred feet high, presented
its glittering front to the ocean. It was hard and massive; the sun of
summer had little effect on its frigid face, and it seemed to bid
defiance to the sea itself. But things often are not what they seem.
Each billow sapped its foundation; it soon began to overhang its base.
At length the cohesion of the mass was not sufficient to sustain its
weight. A rending, accompanied by sounds like heaven's artillery, took
place; the crystal mountain bowed its brow and fell with thunderous
crash upon the water; then, rocking slowly under the impulse of its
dread plunge, the first iceberg floated off to sea!

It is right to remark here that this explanation is,