does not cleave the boulders, it merely breaks out great
craters from the stone. The stone darkens rapidly
on exposure to the air, and the sparkling purity is soon
The upper waters of the Ammo chu.
hidden under a film of dull grayish-black. Beside this
sloping terrace, crowned only with birch and juniper,
the river rushed between frozen banks. Sometimes
there was only a narrow channel left in the middle,
and one could see the three-foot baulks of ice which
hedged the water in, and listen to the quiet “ seethe
with which, now and again, a thin detached layer
of ice begotten of last night and astray upon the current
mounted and came to rest upon the thickening, greenish
mass below. It was just like the prickling crackle
The frozen Ammo ehu in February. The extreme limit of trees is almost reached here.
of a glazier’s diamond. 'Sometimes the ice extended
from shore to shore, broken here and there by some
whirlpool which had defied the cold, or some spirt of
water where the stream flowed too viciously over a
rounded stone to be entirely caught by the closing-m
grip of the frost. It was a wild scene, and very soon
the limit of vegetation, which is here about i 3)300