bergs, they exert such force on the banks of the river as to break off projecting pieces of cliff, or to hurry onwards the large boulders which may have been brought down during previous seasons. And not only cliffs and rocks, but wharves and stone buildings of great extent, have been carried away by the united power of the ice-floes and of the water at Montreal. Anchors laid down within high-water mark, to secure vessels hauled on shore for the winter, must be cut out of the ice on the approach of spring, or they would be carried away. Incessant changes are annually produced on the low islands, bed, and shores, of the St. Lawrence, above Quebec, by the transportation of boulders of granite. The islands are never under water, yet every winter the ice is thrown up on them to the height of 20 or 30 feet, bringing with it abundance of stones and boulders, and carrying away others. Below Quebec, where the gulf rises with the tide, these effects are displayed on a still grander scale. The mass of ice which is formed at low water by the intense frost, on the rise of the tide is lifted up, broken, and thrown in heaps on the shoals. These heaps become frozen together in dense masses, often inclosing boulders, gravel, &c., which have been brought down towards the sea. These heaps of ice and rock are often swept away by a high tide, or by the swelling of the river, and thus the rocks are carried away by the ice on a smaller scale, but in the same manner as already described with respect to the ocean bergs. A block of granite 15 feet long by 10 feet in width and height, and estimated to contain 1,500 cubic feet, was in this way carried to a considerable distance on the St. Lawrence in the year 1837. Thus it appears that the piled-up ice of rivers, when frozen together into a solid mass, has the same power in proportion to its size as the icebergs themselves, to convey large masses of stone or of gravel, or of soil, from one locality to another. It is an interesting fact in connexion with the theory of regelation that such masses should be found to have all the solidity and strength of icebergs, while consisting of mere accumulations of separate layers and floe-pieces. In Belcher's "Arctic Voyage" there is a remark on ice accumulations :-" At this island we had a very fair opportunity of witnessing the effect of 'piling ice,' particularly as noticed on all western projections in the Queen's Channel, or beyond, where they are apparently exposed to the whole impetus of the tides of the Arctic Ocean. In this instance the ice had been raised, slab over slab, on the north-west point, above the summit level of the island; and at first I was so impressed that it was one solid mass, or that it could not be an accumulation of floe-pieces, that I sent the master to determine the fact, as I suspected it to be a part of a berg. But it was simply piled ice, frozen into a mass, and nearly a hundred feet in height. No bergs are supposed to be seen in these seas." In Perley's "Report of the Fisheries of New Brunswick," there is a notice of boulders carried by ice: "Off the western part of Shippagan Island, within the Bay of Chaleur, there is an extensive shallow flat, extending nearly two miles from the land, called the Grand Batture. On this flat, there are numerous large blocks or boulders firmly imbedded, which render it dangerous to cross, even in a fishing-boat: the wreck of a fishing-boat was noticed upon it when the writer crossed in his canoe. These boulders are brought over from the wild and mountainous shores of Caspe, directly across the bay, by the huge masses of floating ice, driven over by the northerly gales which ground upon the Grand Batture, and there melting, add the rocks they bring to those already deposited. With reference to this moving of rocks by ice, Mr. Wilson mentioned that there was formerly a very large rock, directly in front of his landingplace, at Miscow, which was much in the way of his boats, and against which, in stormy weather, they had often received damage. But the severe winter of 1848-49 caused the ice to attain an unusual strength and thickness near the shore of Miscow; and when it moved off in the spring, it carried off this large rock to deposit it where, he hoped, it would be less troublesome." From all that has been said, it will be evident that the transporting power of ice is an agency widely and extensively employed over a large portion of the earth's surface. In rivers as well as in seas, but mainly in the oceans of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the transportation of rocks is constantly going on, and vast masses of stone, imbedded in ice, are launched from the shores which gave them birth, and, after traversing the ocean to an unknown extent, are conveyed into warmer seas, where they gradually melt away, and either drop their burthen into the depths below, or deposit it on some shoal or island where, perhaps, it forms a welcome place of shelter for numerous animal and vegetable existences, which gather round it, and accumulate beneath its shade. Let us, therefore, regard icebergs, not only as majestic and wonderful objects, full of a picturesque beauty which inspires with delight, not unmixed with awe, all who behold them; not only as fearful and destructive masses, against and among which many a ship has been helplessly dashed or crushed, until it has been crippled or destroyed; but let us regard them as powerful and constant workers, ever employed in carrying out a portion of the wondrous economy of our globe, by which the proper balance and adjustment of materials is maintained, by which new islands and continents are reared from the depths, and gradually fitted for |