The glacier, which forms much of the eastern wall of Inglefield Gulf, has a frontage of about ten miles, and is the largest of the series of giant glaciers in which are here concentrated the energies of the ice-cap. North of it lie the Smithson Mountains, and farther beyond, a vast congeries of ice-streams which circle westward and define the northern head of the gulf. To the eastern sheet, upon whose bosom no human being had ever stepped, and on whose beauty and grandeur no white person had ever gazed, we gave the name of Heilprin Glacier, in honor of Prof. Angelo Heilprin, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
On the upward voyage to Greenland we had passed numbers of glaciers, beginning with the great Frederikshaab ice-stream. I had seen the distant gleaming of the Jakobshavn Glacier, and after passing Upernavik we were never without a glacier in sight, and yet it was not until September, when Mr. Peary was able to get out in the boat, and we went to the head of McCormick Bay to see the inland ice-party off, that I came in actual contact with one of these streams of ice. About eight miles above Redcliffe, on the same side of the bay, there is a hanging glacier, which has peered at us past the shore cliffs ever since we entered McCormick Bay. This glacier is supported upon a great pile of gravel, looking like a railway fill, which gives it the appearance of being upon stilts. It was a peculiar experience to see the red-brown rocks and cliffs glowing in the sun, and this great vertical wall of blue ice standing out beyond them, with little streams of water trickling down from it, and occasionally fragments of ice breaking away and dashing down with a muffled, metallic sound; and more than this, to find the ever-constant friend, the Arctic poppy, growing actually beneath the overhanging walls of the glacier. The great glaciers, too, that surround Tooktoo Valley, with its green meadows and glistening lakes, will always remain with me an exquisite recollection.
Returning to our sledge, we made a direct line for our camp, which was reached after an absence of ten hours.
Wearied with our journey, we immediately prepared to rest, and selected a sheltered nook on the sea ice, where the snow was several inches deep, and where we were protected from the light breeze which blows almost constantly by a huge buttress of ice, part of the ice-foot. The memory of the delightful sleep of the night before, when we lay right out in the sunshine, helped me to hurry the sleeping-bags into place and crawl into mine without losing much time.