APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 235 



The latitude of tlie ship's anchorage was GGo 42' 30", longitude 164° 

 12' 50". Kothing but sea was seen to the eastward, and a strong cur- 

 rent ran to the north-east, from which circumstances our navigators 

 still cherished a hope of discovering through this inlet a x>assage into 

 the Frozen Ocean. With this view they spent thirteen days in examin- 

 ing the shores of the inlet, but the only passage out of it was on the 

 south eastern shore, apparently communicating with Norton Sound, and 

 a channel on the western side opening probably into Schischmareft' Bay. 



We do not, however, exactly comprehend M. Kotzebue, where he says, 

 "I certainly hope that this sound may lead to important discoveries 

 next year, and tliough a north-east passage may not with certainty be 

 depended on, yet I believe I shall be able to penetrate much farther to 

 the east, as the land has very deep indentures." Does this mean " farther 

 to the east" within the sound, or to the northward of the sound? If 

 the former, it is quite clear that the examination in that direction was 

 not satisfactory to himself; and knowing, as we do, what mistakes have 

 occurred by the overlapping of points of land when seen only at a dis- 

 tance, we confess that we are not quite satisfied with the examination 

 of the north east coast to the eastern extremity, when, as appears by 

 the chart, the approach was seldom nearer than 10 miles. Our hope, 

 however, of a clear passage does not lie in Kotzebue's inlet. 



On a promontory which juts into the south-eastern part of the bay, 

 the party who had landed made "a singular discovery": 



19 We bar! climbed much about dnrini; our stay M-itliout discovering that we 



"were on real icebergs. The doctor, who had extended his excursions, found 

 part of the bank brokeu down, and saw to his astonishment that the interior of the 

 mountain consisted of pure ice. At this news we all went, provided with shovels 

 and crows, to examiue this phenomenon more closely, and soon arrived at a place 

 where the back rises almost periiendicularly out of the sea to the height of 100 feet, 

 and then runs oft, rising still higher. We saw masses of the purest ice of the height 

 of 100 feet, which are under a cover of moss and grass, and could not have been pro- 

 duced but by some terrible revolution. The place which, by some accident, had 

 fallen in, and is now exposed to the sun and air, melts away, and a good deal of 

 water flows into the sea. An indisputable proof that what we saw was real ice is 

 the quantity of mammoth's teeth and bones which were exposed to view by the 

 melting, and among which I myself found a very tine tooth. We could not assign 

 any reason for a strong smell, like that of burnt horn, which we perceived in this 

 place. The covering of these mountains, on which the most luxuriant grass grows 

 to a certain height, is only half-a-foot thick, and consists of a mixture of clay, sand, 

 and earth, below which the ice gradually melts away, the green cover sinks with it, 

 and continues to grow, and thus it may be foreseen that in a long series of years the 

 mountain will vanish, and a green valley be formed in its stead. By a good obser- 

 vation we found the latitude of the tongue of land 66^ 15' 36" north. (Vol. i, p. 219.) 



This result of "a terrible revolution" is considered by M. Chamisso, 

 the naturalist, "to be similar to the ground ice, covered with vegeta- 

 tion, at the mouth of the Lena, outof Avhich the mammoth, the skeleton 

 of which is now in St. Petersburgh, was thawed." He makes the height 

 of it to be "80 feet at most," and "the length of the profile, in which 

 the ice is exposed to sight, about a musket-shot." 



We have little doubt that both Kotzebue and ('hamisso are mistaken 

 with regard to the formation of this ice-mountain. The terrible revo- 

 lution of Nature is sheer nonsense, and the ground ice of the Lena is 

 cast up from the sea, and afterwards buried by the alluvial soil brought 

 down by the floods, in the same manner as the huge blo(;ks which 

 Captain Parry found on the beach of Melville Island; this operation, 

 however, could not take place on the face of the promontory in the 

 tranquil sound of Kotzebue. What they discovered (without suspect- 

 ing it) was, in fact, a real iceberg, which had been formed in the manner 

 in which we conceive all icebergs are : a rill of water, falhng in a little 



