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But it could not be the same thing in reality, for, as far as I understand the phenomenon of ground-ice, some disturbed motion of the water is necessary, to drive down below the surface the cold particles of water, which become ice the moment they strike upon any solid substance shaped like fractured stone; the specific gravity of freezing water being so much less than that of water at a somewhat higher temperature, that without some disturbing cause it would not sink to the bottom.

I have often watched the freezing of a rapid Scotch stream, where, in the swifter parts, the ice forms first at the bottom and gradually creeps up the larger stones till it appears on the surface, and becomes a nucleus, round which pieces of floating ice collect; and the substance in the glacière-lake had exactly the same appearance as the Scotch ground-ice.

Very soon the water over-flowed, so that houses were deluged and men had to take to boats and the roofs of their cabins for safety; it looked as though Dawson would be washed away. The drifting ice commenced to pack and pile against the bridge above the town; unless the jam could be broken before the ground-ice loosened, the bridge must collapse. Some men volunteered to blow it up with dynamite.

In so doing they caused the ground-ice to tear itself free from the bottom so that, the water getting underneath, it floated up and pressed the pack against the floor of the bridge, forming, for a half-minute, an impassable barrier against the torrent rushing down.

May I be there to see! The left side of the glacière, near the entrance, was occupied by a columnar cascade, behind which I forced a passage by chopping away some lovely ornaments of ice. Here also the solid ground-ice falls away a little under the surface, leaving a cavern 8 or 9 feet deep, on the rock side of which every possible glacial fantasy was to be found.

The thin rod quivered a little the least little jar in the world; then it vibrated steadily for a few seconds, came to rest, and vibrated again, this time nodding to another point of the compass. "Too soon!" said Kotuko. "Some big floe has broken far away outside." The girl pointed at the rod, and shook her head. "It is the big breaking," she said. "Listen to the ground-ice. It knocks."

For one moment a look of alarm flitted over the wizard's face, as he glanced quickly shoreward to see whether the ground-ice was passable; but it was only for a moment, for immediately he perceived that the light had dazzled and deceived him. It was not water, but new ice smooth and refulgent as a mirror. The fringe of old ice on shore was disrupted and impassable.

"Soon after I got there the winter broke up and, by the first of May, though the Klondike itself was still frozen solid to its river-bed, the snow and ice from the country and rivers to the south, which had been exposed to the rays of the sun, had thawed and, draining into it, had created a shallow torrent which, running between the banks above the ground-ice, gave an appearance of the Klondike in full flood.