And when I climbed around the
front, and a little way up the west side of the glacier, I found that it
had swelled and increased in height and width in accordance with its
advance, and carried away the outer ranks of trees on its bank.
On our way back to camp after these first observations I planned a
far-and-wide excursion for the morrow. I awoke early, called not only by
the glacier, which had been on my mind all night, but by a grand
flood-storm. The wind was blowing a gale from the north and the rain
was flying with the clouds in a wide passionate horizontal flood, as if
it were all passing over the country instead of falling on it. The main
perennial streams were booming high above their banks, and hundreds of
new ones, roaring like the sea, almost covered the lofty gray walls of
the inlet with white cascades and falls. I had intended making a cup of
coffee and getting something like a breakfast before starting, but when
I heard the storm and looked out I made haste to join it; for many of
Nature's finest lessons are to be found in her storms, and if careful
to keep in right relations with them, we may go safely abroad with them,
rejoicing in the grandeur and beauty of their works and ways, and
chanting with the old Norsemen, "The blast of the tempest aids our oars,
the hurricane is our servant and drives us whither we wish to go.
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