th his eyes half-closed, apparently
watching the effect the glacier had upon the visitors; Dale gazed at it
contemplatively, as if it were the wrinkled face of an old friend; and
Saxe stared wonderingly, for it was so different to anything he had
pictured in his own mind.

"Well, what do you think of it?" said Dale, at last.

"Don't quite know, sir," said Saxe, sitting down, drawing up his knees
to rest his chin, and throwing his arms about his legs. "It wants
looking at. But I'm beginning to understand now. That's the upper part
of the river which runs down the valley, only up here it is always
frozen. Seems rum, though, for the sun's regularly blistering my neck."

"You have something of the idea, but you are not quite right, Saxe,"
replied Dale. "That is the upper part of the river, and yet it is not,
because it is a distinct river. You speak of it as if the river up here
had become frozen. Now, it is frozen because it has never been
otherwise."

"Must have been water once, or else it couldn't have run down that
narrow valley."

"It has never been anything but ice, Saxe," said Dale, smiling; "and yet
it has run down the valley like that."

"Ice can't flow, because it is solid," said Saxe dogmatically.

"Ice can flow, because it is elastic as well as solid."

"Mr Dale!"

"Proof, boy. Haven't you seen it bend when thin, and people have been
on it skating?"

"Oh! ah! I'd forgotten that."

"Well, this ice is sufficiently elastic to flow very slowly, forced down
by its own weight and that of the hundreds of thousands of tons behind."

"Oh, I say, Mr Dale--gently!" cried Saxe.

"Well, then, millions of tons, boy. I am not exaggerating. You do not
understand the vastness of these places. That glacier you are looking
at is only one of the outlets of a huge reservoir of ice and snow,
extending up there in the mountains for miles. It is forced down, as
you see, bending into the irregularities of the valley where they are
not too great; but when the depths are extensive the ice cracks right
across."

"With a noise like a gun, sometimes," interpolated the guide, who was
listening intently.

"And I know, like that," cried Saxe, pointing to a deep-looking jagged
rift, extending right across the ice-torrent: "that makes a crevasse."

"Quite correct," said Dale.

"But stop a moment," cried Saxe: "this is all solid-looking blue ice.
It's snow that falls on the tops of the mountains."

"Yes; snow a