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Show 94. fascination of the g l a c i a l womb. "Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?" Muir had asked during his Thousand Mile Walk. And when he answered, "After human beings have also played t h e i r part in C r e a t i o n ' s plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever," he had e s t a b l i s h e d his own view about the p o s s i b i l i ty of annihilation. He spoke of the death of g l a c i e r s in much the same terms he used for men. This might be puzzling u n t i l one realizes that for Muir, g l a c i e r s , l i k e men, were only a v i t al part of the Plan. Aside from c a l l i n g the bergshrund a g l a c i a l womb, Muir described the glacier i t s e l f as animate. It was not like Melville's transparent sea; i t was a l i v i n g fountain. It had blue veins. In i t the l i g h t pulsed. Muir lavished his style on glaciers, frequently personifying them. This one was female, was the Mother, but Muir was capable of describing a glacier in male terms as well. He usually caught and removed t h is kind of sexuality, as in the conclusion to an essay published in 1880, "Ancient Glaciers of the S i e r r a . " In an early draft he had described a brooding g l a c i e r , outspread s p i r i t - l i ke over a predestined landscape, and he spoke of "channels furrowed," "basins scooped," and the g l a c i e r s which "wither and vanish." The sexuality was c l e a r enough, and did belong in such a vision of genesis. Because the g l a c i e r was a c r e a t i v e force with which Muir wished to merge, his i d e n t i f i c a t i o n with the |