1853.] FOUNDATION OP CRYSTAL PALACE. 59 



We were now aground : what the next motion might 

 effect we could only await in patience ; all that human 

 power could avail had reached its limit. In the general 

 feeling each man thinks of himself, the Captain has to 

 think for all ; what his feelings were it is needless to de- 

 scribe, but the means of future security were, in his 

 mind, uppermost. Our changes of late left us cause for 

 gratitude and ground for hope ; we were now safe from 

 drowning. 



Before this bouleversement the beach offered nothing 

 but finely comminuted stones and but very little snow, 

 nothing indeed adapted for building. As a few hours 

 more might compel us to seek for refuge on the shore, 

 I landed to examine for materials. Before me Nature 

 hnd, by this late act, provided amply for our necessities; 

 the slabs of ice, all of nine inches in thickness and of 

 every required surface, were thickly strewed at my feet. 

 I determined instantly on the construction of a Crystal 

 Palace, perhaps to live, like its predecessor, in history ! 

 The officers were summoned, the ground lines marked 

 out, navvies sinking the foundations, moulds made, 

 blocks sawn out, and the first house in Victoria Town 

 well in progress before we retired to rest ; its dimensions 

 were eighty feet in length by twenty feet in width, its 

 walls eighteen inches in thickness. The cement being 

 formed of wet snow at a temperature of 6, soon re- 

 duced the work to solidity, and, in justice to the build- 

 ers, I must say that their work was as accurate as if Her 



/ 



Majesty had intended to inspect it in person ; each ice- 

 brick is cut by hand or cross-cut saws, and the building 

 presents a very substantial appearance. The Crystal 



