440 Probable influence of 



high, were from about 4000 to 6500 feet in breadth. Cap- 

 tain D'Urville remarks that, in going towards the west, they 

 had already seen some icebergs of fine dimensions, attaining 

 from about two miles and a half to five miles in length, 

 not to speak of their breadth. But, on the 20th of Feb- 

 ruary, they passed one which, having been accurately 

 measured, they found to be a compact mass, 11,000 toises, 

 over 13 miles, in length, and 100 feet high, with walls per- 

 fectly vertical. When we remember that the submerged 

 portions of these icebergs must be from six to eight times 

 more considerable than the portion which is visible, — for 

 the experiments upon the weight of ice give about these 

 proportions, — we may be truly astounded at their magnitude. 

 We may see in these floating ice-rocks, when fairly set in 

 motion, an agency of almost resistless mechanical power. 

 The ploughing up, or levelling and pushing along the loose 

 materials composing the shoals, which their lower portions 

 might touch, the piling up of sand and pebbles along their 

 sides and extremities, and the grating and binding of rocks 

 and beds of clay, are effects wliich we may readily conceive 

 to have been produced by them. 



We cannot omit to allude to the various and picturesque 

 forms which icebergs exhibit, although, perhaps, no connec- 

 tion may be traced between their forms and the mechanical 

 effects attributed to them. Every variety of form may be 

 seen, from the huddled, peaked, and furrowed surface, to a 

 uniform plain. To one observer, the marvellous spectacle 

 which their fantastic forms present, recalls the palaces of 

 crystal and diamonds, so common in fairy tales ; another 

 beholds merely an island, with level summit and vertical 

 walls, resembling cliffs of chalk, in which he seeks in vain for 

 the picturesque beauty which he has heard described. The 

 remarkable resemblances, which have been noticed in these 

 ice-islands, cannot exist merely in imagination ; for the ac- 

 count given me by a rough, old whaler, who could see Amster- 

 dam and Rotterdam, witli their steeples, balconies, and por- 

 ticoes, in the icebergs which beset his vessel, is repeated by 



