ice-islands to moor the ship to them in storms, carrying an anchor upon the ice, and inserting the fluke in a hole made for the purpose. In the state just alluded to, such is the brittleness of the substance, that one blow with an axe is sometimes sufficient to cause the immense mass to rend asunder with fearful noise, one part falling one way, and another in the opposite, often swallowing up the ill-fated mariner, and crushing the gallant bark.

Contact with floating icebergs, when a ship is under sail, is highly dangerous. From the coolness

of the air in their immediate neighbourhood, the moisture of the atmosphere is condensed around them; and hence they are often enveloped in fogs, so as to be invisible within the length of a few fathoms. A momentary relaxation of vigilance on the part of the mariner, may bring the ship's bows on the submerged part of an iceberg, whose sharp needle-like points, hard as rock, instantly pierce the planking, and perhaps open a fatal leak. Many lamentable shipwrecks have resulted from this cause. In the long heavy swell, so common in the open sea, the peril of floating ice is greatly increased, as the huge angular masses are rolled and ground against each other with a force that nothing can resist.

These ice-islands are quite distinct in their nature from the field-ice, which so largely overspreads the surface of the sea, and are believed to be entirely of land formation, consisting of fresh water frozen. The process of their formation is interesting: the glens and valleys in the islands of Spitzbergen are filled up with solid ice, which has been accumulating for uncounted ages; these are the sources from whence the floating icebergs are supplied. Perhaps as long ago as the creation of man, or at least as the deluge, these glaciers began in the snows of winter; the summer sun melted the surface of this snow, and the water, thus produced, sinking down into that which remained, saturated it and increased its density. The ensuing winter froze this into a mass of porous ice, and superadded a fresh surface of snow. The same process again going on in summer, of water percolating through the porous crystals, which in its

turn was re-frozen, soon changed the lowest stratum into a mass of dense and transparent ice. Centuries of alternate winters and summers have thus produced aggregations of enormous bulk. Scoresby mentions one of eleven miles in length, and four hundred feet in height at the seaward edge, whence it slopes upward and backward till it attains the height of sixteen hundred feet; an inclined plane of smooth unsullied snow, the beauty and magnitude of which render it a very conspicuous landmark on that inhospitable shore. The upper surface of a land iceberg is usually somewhat hollow, and during the summer the concavities are filled with pools or lakes of the purest water, which often wears channels for itself through the substance, or is precipitated in the form of a cataract over the edge. The water freezing in fissures thus produced, and expanding with irresistible force, tears off large fragments from the outer edge, which are precipitated into the ocean; and high spring tides, lashed by storms, undermine portions of the base, and produce the same effect. The masses thus dislodged float away, and form ice-islands. When newly broken, the fracture is said to present a glistening surface of a clear greenish blue, approaching an emerald green; but of such as I have myself had an opportunity of examining in Newfoundland, the hollows were of the purest azure.

"On an excursion to one of the Seven Icebergs," says Mr. Scoresby, "in July 1818, I was particularly fortunate in witnessing one of the grandest effects which these polar glaciers ever present. A strong north-westerly swell having for some hours

been beating on the shore, had loosened a number of fragments attached to the iceberg, and various heaps of broken ice denoted recent shoots of the seaward edge. As we rode towards it, with a view of proceeding close to its base, I observed a few little pieces fall from the top; and while my eye was fixed upon the place, an immense column, probably fifty feet square, and one hundred and fifty feet high, began to leave the parent ice at the top, and leaning majestically forward, with an accelerated velocity fell with an awful crash into the sea. The water into which it plunged was converted into an appearance of vapour or smoke, like that from a furious cannonading. The noise was equal to that of thunder, which it nearly resembled. The column which fell was nearly square, and in magnitude resembled a church. It broke into thousands of pieces. This circumstance was a happy caution, for we might inadvertently have gone to the very base of the icy cliff, from whence masses of considerable magnitude were continually breaking.'

"'Tis sunset: to the firmament serene,
The Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene;
Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold
Girds the blue hemisphere; above unroll'd,

The keen, clear air grows palpable to sight,

Embodied in a flush of crimson light,

Through which the evening star, with milder gleam,
Descends to meet her image in the stream.

Far in the east, what spectacle unknown

Allures the eye to gaze on it alone?

-Amidst black rocks, that lift on either hand
Their countless peaks, and mark receding land;

* Arctic Regions, i. 104.

Amidst a tortuous labyrinth of seas
That shine around the arctic Cyclades ;
Amidst a coast of dreariest continent,
In many a shapeless promontory rent ;
-O'er rocks, seas, islands, promontories spread,
The Ice-Blink rears its undulated head;
On which the sun, beyond th' horizon shrined,
Hath left his richest garniture behind;
Piled on a hundred arches, ridge by ridge,
O'er fixed and fluid strides the Alpine bridge,
Whose blocks of sapphire seem to mortal eye
Hewn from cerulean quarries of the sky;
With glacier battlements, that crowd the spheres,
The slow creation of six thousand years,
Amidst immensity it towers sublime,
Winter's eternal palace, built by Time.

All human structures by his touch are borne

Down to the dust; mountains themselves are worn
With his light footsteps; here for ever grows,
Amid the region of unmelting snows,
A monument; where every flake that falls,
Gives adamantine firmness to the walls.
The sun beholds no mirror, in his race,
That shows a brighter image of his face;
The stars, in their nocturnal vigils, rest
Like signal fires on its illumined crest;
The gliding moon around the ramparts wheels,
And all its magic lights and shades reveals;
Beneath, the tide with idle fury raves

To undermine it through a thousand caves;

Rent from its roof though thundering fragments oft

Plunge to the gulph, immovable aloft,

From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land,

Its turrets heighten, and its piers expand.”*

By far the greatest portion of the ice met with in navigating these seas, is of marine formation. During the greater part of the year, in high lati