JAN MAYEN' ISLAND. 159 



our and character. As at Spitzbergen, your ap- 

 proach to it, seems amazingly tardy. At the dis- 

 tance of ten or fifteen miles, a stranger to polar 

 lands would suppose himself within a league of the 

 rocks. 



At this season (August 4th) all the high lands 

 were covered with snow and ice ; and the low lands, 

 in those valleys and deep cavities, where large 

 beds of snow had been collected, still retained part 

 of their winter covering, down to the very border of 

 the sea. 



Between Capes North-east and South-east, are 

 three very singular icebergs. They occupy recesses 

 in the cliff, where it is 1284 feet high by observation, 

 and nearly perpendicular, and extend from the base 

 of Beercnberg down to the water's edge. These 

 polar glaciers differed in appearance from any thing^ 

 of the kind I had before seen. They were very 

 rough on the surface, and of a gi-eenish grey colour. 

 They presented the appearance of immense cataracts, 

 suddenly arrested in their progress, and congealed 

 on the s])ot, by the power of an intense frost. Like 

 cascades, their prominent greenish coloiu* was variega- 

 ted with snow-white patches resembling foam, which 

 were contrasted with the jet-black points of the most 

 prominent rocks peeping through their surfaces. As 

 in cataracts also, they seemed to follow in some mea- 

 sure the figure of the rocks, over which they lay 5. 



