detonation rings out like
the firing of a rifle, and one of the beautiful spires on the crest of
the very centre of the wall is shivered into atoms, and its fragments
fall with a splash four hundred feet. Later there is a report as of a
cannon, but without result; this, we are told, is the parting of the sea
of ice somewhere far back in its mountain home. Presently two similar
explosions, evidently right close to us, followed by rumbling echoes,
and over topples a huge mass weighing tons, which sinks so far that
several seconds elapse before it rises to the surface, swaying to and
fro until it finds its equilibrium, and then floats down the current,
one more turquoise gem added to the chain which precedes it.

And this continued all day, sometimes at intervals of seconds only,
sometimes of half an hour, and when we retired at night the explosion
and the splash became as monotonous and periodical as the tinkling of
the street-car bell or the footstep of the passer-by does at home. There
was one tremendous breaking-off towards evening; the sun, as we had
hoped, was out in full glory, and at the distance from which we now
viewed the glacier it was a mountain of snow-covered ice chopped off in
front. For many miles we could see over and beyond the facade, as though
looking at a great river of snow; yet the facade itself was a face of
corrugated emerald, reflecting the sun's rays at every imaginable angle,
and changing and scintillating with every movement of the ship.

Suddenly, near the centre, the top began to incline forward, and the
whole face of probably twenty yards in width, from the top of the
glacier to the bottom of the bay, fell outward as a ladder would fall,
without a break anywhere. There was a tremendous upheaving of the water,
of course; then the report of the invariable explosion reached us, but
no trace remained of the fallen ice, save the swell in the water, which
had almost reached and rocked the steamer. I do not know how much time
elapsed before the lovely thing rose to the surface, but it seemed an
age, and then it came in a dozen pieces, each of the same exquisite
diaphanous blue, which, as they approached us gradually, changed to a
clear transparent sapphire.

If it will help to serve the purpose of giving a just idea of the
colossal proportions of the scene I endeavor to describe, let me say
that the Capitol at Washington, the City Hall in Philadelphia, the
Cathedral, the Equitable, and the Mill