path, avoiding the same crevasses, and pointing out the same moulins and other objects of interest, and yet, by the progressive movement of the glacier, the ice is wholly changed. The bed of the glacier and the rocks at the side remaining nearly always the same, the ice is twisted into the same forms, and hence appears to be at rest. Such, then, is the glacier as we witnessed it in the Mer de Glace, which combines all, or nearly all, the chief features of glacier scenery. CHAPTER III. ON ICEBERGS. MOUNTAINOUS masses of ice, called Icebergs, form one of the grandest features of the Arctic and Antarctic seas. They have their origin in the great glaciers of polar regions, which, slowly descending through the fiords into the sea, shoot out at their termination huge masses of ice, which are gradually undermined by the waves, and at length detached from the parent glacier to commence a separate existence of their own, as floating ice-islands. These bergs are of various sizes and shapes; their circumference may be measured by yards or by miles; their travels may be limited or extensive; they may float in silent majesty on their gloomy seas, or they may be roughly assailed by masses of ice dashing against them, and tossing the spray to their very summits; they may carry destruction to everything which crosses their course, or they may themselves waste away, lose their equilibrium, and roll over with a commotion spreading far and wide, and a sound resembling thunder. Many of the ice-islands, however, which are seen floating in the northern and southern hemispheres are probably mere accumulations of coast-ice, gradually formed at the base of some lofty precipice, receiving accessions of drift-snow, blown from the land, which, also, by partial thawing and freezing, becomes ice, and carrying in their interior masses of stone which have fallen from the cliff. Such bergs are usually flat-topped, their lower portions readily melt, and thus they frequently turn over and assume very irregular shapes. Icebergs are most numerous along the eastern shores of Greenland, at a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles from the coast, where they occur by hundreds and thousands, forming a sort of barrier outside the drift-ice, and rendering it impossible for vessels to approach those shores. In obscure lights, icebergs strongly resemble chalk cliffs; in sunlight, they have the lustre of refined sugar. They contain deep cavities filled with pools of azure-blue water, pure and refreshing, and which sometimes overflows the edges in beautiful cascades. Vessels in want of fresh water often obtain it from this source. The water-casks are either landed, filled, and then rolled into the sea; or, they remain in the boat, or even on the deck of the ship, and the water is conveyed into them by means of a long hose of canvas or leather. The bergs present all kinds of strange and fantastic forms, as well as the grander features of mountains, palaces, churches, massive arched ways, &c. Frequently, the mountain has a perpendicular face rising to a great height on one side, and rapidly descending to a low elevation on the other. The base is usually of much greater extent than the upper surface, the visible part of the berg being only one-seventh or one-eighth of the whole mass. The number and vastness of these bergs give us a grand idea of the polar seas, and of the extent of the glaciers, which open into them. Few persons competent to describe the scene have witnessed the actual detachment of an iceberg; but Captain Scoresby has described the phenomenon under the title given it by the Greenlanders, namely, the calving of the iceblink. The projecting mass from the glacier, already deeply undermined, was attacked by a strong northwesterly swell, which beat for several hours upon the shore, and caused the berg to give signs of leaving the parent mass. The voyagers were rowing towards its base, but were happily still at a safe distance, when an immense column, about one hundred and fifty feet high, and fifty feet square, 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 berg, in this instance, fell into a thousand pieces, and was therefore not a fair type of that gentler and more gradual detachment which must take place in quiet seas, when the slow undermining effect of the salt water has worked its natural process, and the berg falls or slides by its own weight into the sea, of which it is to be henceforth the majestic ornament and |