TO kotzebue's sound. ^19 



August the 8th. We had passed a very unplea- 

 sant night, for it was stormy and rainy ; and as 

 the morning promised no better weather, I re- 

 solved to sail back to the ship ; but scarcely had 

 we gone half way, when we were overtaken by a 

 violent storm from the south-east : the long-boat 

 drew much water, and we were obliged to return 

 to the landing-place we had just quitted. Being 

 wet through, 1 had a fire made of drift-wood, which 

 we found every where in plenty j we dried our 

 clothes, and prepared a refreshing soup. It seemed 

 as if fortune had sent this storm, to enable us to 

 make a very remarkable discovery, which we owe 

 to Dr. Eschscholtz. We had climbed much about 

 during our stay, without discovering that we were 

 on real ice-bergs. The doctor, who had extended 

 his excursions, found part of the bank broken 

 down, and saw, to his astonishment, that the in- 

 terior of the mountain, consisted of pure ice. 

 At this news, we all went, provided with shovels 

 and crows, to examine this phenomenon more 

 closely, and soon arrived at a place where the 

 back rises almost perpendicularly out of the sea, to 

 the height of a hundred feet ; and then runs off, 

 rising still higher. We saw masses of the purest 

 ice, of the height of an hundred feet, which are 

 under a cover of moss and grass j and could not 

 have been produced, but by some terrible revolu- 

 tion. The place which, by some accident, had 

 fallen in, and is now exposed to the sun and air, 



