In this condition it remains for
many a year, until at length, toward the end of some auspicious cluster
of seasons, the glacier recedes beyond the upper margin of the basin,
leaving it open from shore to shore for the first time, thousands of
years after its conception beneath the glacier that excavated its basin.
The landscape, cold and bare, is reflected in its pure depths; the winds
ruffle its glassy surface, and the sun fills it with throbbing spangles,
while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leafless
shores,--sun-spangles during the day and reflected stars at night its
only flowers, the winds and the snow its only visitors. Meanwhile, the
glacier continues to recede, and numerous rills, still younger than the
lake itself, bring down glacier-mud, sand-grains, and pebbles, giving
rise to margin-rings and plats of soil. To these fresh soil-beds come
many a waiting plant. First, a hardy carex with arching leaves and a
spike of brown flowers; then, as the seasons grow warmer, and the
soil-beds deeper and wider, other sedges take their appointed places,
and these are joined by blue gentians, daisies, dodecatheons, violets,
honeyworts, and many a lowly moss.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130