As they drew near to the tall rock, Fred's hopes began to fade, and soon
were utterly quenched by the fog clearing away, and showing that the
column was indeed of nature's own constructing. It was a single,
solitary shaft of green limestone, which stood on the brink of a deep
ravine, and was marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it. The
length of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and the
pedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of two
hundred feet high.

This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystal
fortress, which was suddenly revealed by the clearing away of the
fog-bank to the north. It was the face of the great glacier of the
interior, which here presented an unbroken perpendicular front--a sweep
of solid glassy wall, which rose three hundred feet above the
water-level, with an unknown depth below it. The sun glittered on the
crags and peaks and battlements of this ice fortress, as if the
mysterious inhabitants of the Far North had lit up their fires and
planted their artillery to resist further invasion.

The effect upon the minds of the two youths, who were probably the
first to gaze upon those wondrous visions of the Icy Regions, was
tremendous. For a long time neither of them could utter a word, and it
would be idle to attempt to transcribe the language in which, at length,
their excited feelings sought to escape. It was not until their backs
had been for some time turned on the scene, and the cape near the valley
of red snow had completely shut it out from view, that they could
condescend to converse again in their ordinary tones on ordinary
subjects.