44 ELISilA KENT KANE. 



sublime and imposing appearance. The extent of 

 coast thus seen at a single view was about forty 

 miles, and its uneven heights frequently towered 

 aspiringly against the wintry heavens to the distance 

 of nine hundred feet. Its edges, where they met 

 the sea, were abrupt and lofty precipices, by whose 

 base vast icebergs were slowly and grandly sailing, 

 some of which were three or four hundred feet 

 in height. Dr. Kane counted two hundred and 

 eight of these, of various sizes, within the horizon 

 at a single time. The altitude of the icebergs of 

 Baffin's Bay exceeds that of all others. Forster 

 computes the greatest altitude of Antarctic ice at a 

 hundred feet and upward. Graah observed none 

 higher on the eastern coast of Greenland than a 

 hundred and twenty feet. Scoresby computes those 

 in the Spitzbergen Sea at two hundred feet. But 

 Sir John Ross gives the accurate measurement of 

 one in Baffin's Bay at three hundred and twenty- 

 five feet in height and twelve hundred in length. 

 The multiform appearances and the sublime effect of 

 these colossal products of Polar cold and Polar seas 

 it would be impossible for language to depict. 



Many of these icebergs are covered with detritus, 

 or debris of rock, earth, and sand. Dr. Kane ob- 

 tained some specimens of rock from one which had 

 thawed down to the water's edge. They were com- 



