J.. 



8 M'Kecvtr's Voyage to Hudson's Bay. 



a Grecian temple, supported by round massive columns of an 

 azure hue, which at a distance looked like the purest moun- 

 tain granite. These stupendous masses, or icebergs, as they 

 are termed, are some of them the creation of ages, and receive 

 annually additional height by the falling of snows and rain, 

 which instantly congeal, and in this way more than repair the 

 loss occasioned by the influence of the melting sun. The 

 spray of the ocean, which dashes against these mountains, 

 freezes into an infinite variety of forms, and gives to the spec- 

 tator ideal towers, streets, churches, steeples, and, in fact, 

 every shape which the most romantic imagination could pic- 

 ture to itself. When, at the close of evening, the almost level 

 beams of the descending sun are directed on the numerous 

 apertures, or chambers, as we might suppose them, of these 

 imaginary palaces, abbeys, &c. the effect is inconceivably 

 grand : in one place you see them touched with a rich golden 

 colour; in another, with a light purple tint; and in others, 

 again, with a rich crimson suffusion. 



Some of these islands, as I have already mentioned, re- 

 main stationary for ages in this frozen climate; while the 

 smaller masses, or floating mountains, as they are called, 

 move slowly and majestically along, chilling the ambient at- 

 mosphere for miles around, until, being drifted into southern 

 latitudes, they are gradually dissolved in the boundless ele- 

 ment. It sometimes happens, that two of these masses, though 

 distinct* above water, are intimately united beneath its sur- 

 face. I recollect the captain mentioning to me, that owing 

 to this circumstance, the Hudson's Bay Company, a few years 

 ago, lost one of their finest vessels. The master, not sup- 

 posing but that they were quite distinct beneath, ran the 

 vessel in between them ; the ship immediately foundered, and 

 every person on board would have perished, but that fortu- 

 nately another of the company's ships was at hand to take 

 them up. 



Byajieldofice is to be understood one uninterrupted sheet 

 of considerable extent. They vary from one to many leagues 

 in length. Mr. Scoresby states, that upon one which he saw 

 he conceived a coach might be driven a hundred miles without 

 meeting with any obstruction. This I have not the smallest 



* Barentz, and the famous Dutch navigator Heemskerk, in their voyage 

 for the discovery of a north-east passage, after wintering at Nova Zenibla, 

 lost their ship in this way, and then sailed many hundred leagues in an open 

 boat, through the ice; during which, they were often assaulted by the white 

 bears, and sometimes obliged to drag the boat and all its lading a good way 

 over the ice. They came at last to Kotira, in Lapland, where they were 

 taken up by a Dutch vessel. See Crantz 1 Greenland. 



