196 ON THE EFFECTING OF 



any of those " convulsions of nature," which sometimes 

 shake the Andes, to cause such a separation of the above 

 huge block from the enormous original. The simple visita- 

 tion of the sun, every year, fails not to produce similar 

 convulsions, and load the sea with ice beros. But in the 



projecting beyond the skin : three finners passed near the ship ; they 

 seemed about forty feet in length each : a female whale (balaena 

 mysticetus) killed this day, measured sixty feet : it received the 

 harpoon but once, and dived away under the ice, drawing down three 

 boats' lines, being 1080 fathoms, and died at the bottom : immense 

 groups of the oniscus ceti attached to the under lip, and to the under 

 part of the fins : the edge of the fleshy covering, embracing the root 

 of the monodon's tooth, was covered with insects of the same descrip- 

 tion : it appeared somewhat singular that not a mallemuck, with 

 the exception of the white one above noticed, came near the ship 

 this day, though the men were engaged flinching, until the latter 

 part, when a few appeared, which were evidently new comers, as 

 was remarked by their clean feathers and voracious efforts : the 

 fog continued throughout, leaving the zenith unusually clear : a 

 luminous arch appeared this afternoon in opposition to the sun, but 

 destitute of iridescence : the whole interior of this arch was strongly 

 luminous, and objects within its compass partook of that illumination : 

 I thought it worthy of a place among the sketches, as not having 

 been heretofore noticed in any publication within my experience (see 

 Plate XVII., Fig. 1.): the sun light at midnight is strong to an in- 

 tense degree ; but, owing probably to the presence of the ice, the ther 



