THE COAST. 133 



considerable quantity of verdure among the small valleys, 

 though the vegetation which covers them is of a brown- 

 ish colour. Following the windings which are visible 

 between the islands, we pass up the deeper fiords, where 

 is the greatest quantity of vegetation to be seen in all 

 Greenland : some six or eight miles up the fiords the 

 land is even covered with stunted willow and birch 

 bushes; these are the only representatives of "forests" 

 in this barren land, and never attain a greater height 

 than four feet. The hollows and slopes of the moun- 

 tains are covered with loose stones of considerable size, 

 barely hidden by these bushes. 



The vast icebergs which thickly strew these seas 

 have their origin from the ice-fiords and the coast 

 glaciers, thus : this frozen mass being constantly pushed 

 forward, a sort of outward draught takes place, its 

 surface becomes crevassed and fissured by passing over 

 uneven ground, and the exposed face of the glacier being 

 eaten away by the warm water at its base, becomes 

 top-heavy, breaks away from the mass, and a new 

 child of the Arctic IB launched into the world. 



The icebergs vary in size according to the glaciers 

 from which they have been formed and the conditions 

 under which tfcey have been separated. 



Imagine St. Paul's Cathedral, St. George's Hall, or 

 Holyrood Palace floating upon the surface of the water, 

 having five or six times its own size underneath : picture 

 it made of the purest white marble, carved into innumer- 

 able domes, turrets, and spires. Again, imagine somt 



