92 BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN. 



a loud, grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of 

 water, which, being previously lodged in the fissures, 

 now made its escape in numberless small cataracts ovei 

 the front of the glacier." 



After describing the disturbance occasioned by the 

 plunge of this enormous fragment, and the rollers whi^h 

 swept over the surface of the bay, and obliged the 

 Dorothea, then careening at the distance of four miles, 

 to aright, by releasing the tackles, he thus proceeds : 



" The piece that had been disengaged at first wholly 

 disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a 

 violent boiling of the sea, and a shooting up of clouds 

 of spray, like that which occurs at the foot of a great 

 cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its 

 head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water 

 pouring down from all parts of it ; and then, laboring as 

 if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over, and, 

 after rocking about some minutes, at length became 

 settled. We now approached it, and found it nearly a 

 quarter of a mile in circumference, and sixty feet out of 

 the water. Knowing its specific gravity, and making a 

 fair allowance for its inequalities, we computed its 

 weight at 421,660 tons. A stream of salt water was 

 still pouring down its sides, and there was a continual 

 cracking noise, as loud as that of a cart-whip, occa- 

 sioned, I suppose, by the escape of fixed (confined) 



air. 7 



Mr. Beechey confirms what has frequently been found 

 and noticed the mildness of the temperature on the 

 western coast of Spitzbergen, there being little or no 

 sensation of cold, though the thermometer might be only 

 a few degrees above the freezing point. The brilliant 

 and lively effect of a clear day, when the sun shines 

 forth, with a pure sky, whose azure hue is so intense as 

 to find no parallel even in the boasted Italian sky, affords, 



