EFFECTS OF DISSOLUTION. 51 



monts kept wallowing in the sea for hours before 

 they came to rest. Even the berg to which we were 

 moored chimed in with the infernal concert, and dis- 

 charged a corner larger than St. Paul's Cathedral. 



No words of mine can adequately describe the din 

 and noise which filled our ears during the few hours 

 succeeding the encounter which I have narrated, and 

 therefore .1 borrow from the " Ancient Mariner " : - 



" The ice was here, 

 The ice was there, 



The ice was all around ; 

 It creaked and growled, 

 And roared and howled 



Like demons in a swound." 



It seemed, indeed, as if old Thor himself had taken 

 a holiday, and had come away from his kingdom of 

 Thrudwanger and his Winding Palace of five hun- 

 dred and forty halls, and had crossed the mountains 

 with his chariot and he-goats, armed with his mace 

 of strength, and girt about with his belt of prowess^ 

 and wearing his gauntlets of iron, for the purpose 

 of knocking these Giants of the frost to right and 

 left for his own special amusement. ' 



It is, however, only at this season of the year that 

 the bergs are so unneighborly. They are rarely 

 known to break up except in the months of July and 

 August. It must be then owing to an unevenly 

 heated condition of the interior and exterior, caused 



J 



by the sun's warm rays playing upon them. From 

 the sunny side of a berg I have not unfrequently seen 

 pieces discharged in a line almost horizontal, with 

 great force, and with an explosive report like a quar- 

 ryman's blast. These explosions and the crumbling 

 of the ice are always attended with a cloud of vapor 



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