crept still nearer, over the living blue of the water, the continual
fall of the icebergs from the front wall of the glacier became
apparent. At intervals of about five minutes, with a terrific crash
like thunder a great wedge of the glittering wall would fall forward
into the blue-green depths, and a cloud of snowy spray rise up
hundreds of feet into the air. The berg, thus detached, after a few
minutes would rise to the surface, glistening, dazzling, and begin
its joyous, buoyant voyage downwards to the sea. In all this brilliant
setting, with this glory of light around and the triumphal crash of
sound like the salute of cannon, amid this joyous movement and in this
blaze of colour, amid all that seemed to personify life, we were
watching the death of the glacier.

The colossal Muir Glacier, the remains of a world the history of which
is lost in the dim twilight none can now penetrate, is dying slowly
through a million years. From the mountains, eternally snow-covered,
where its huge body, three hundred and fifty miles in extent, has
rested through the centuries, it creeps forward slowly towards the sea
to meet its doom. Formerly its lip touched the open ocean where now
the Taku inlet commences to run inland. But the icy waters, that yet
are so much warmer than itself, caressed it with eroding caresses and
melted it, and broke bergs from it and rushed inwards, following it
till they formed the Taku Inlet, and now the process still goes on,
the gigantic body moves forward inch by inch and the green waves break
the bergs from its face as the sun invades its structure; and so it
lies there, dying slowly through the countless years, glorious,
miraculous.

The Captain had promised to approach the face of the glacier as near
as was reasonably safe and lie there at anchor for an hour, that the