282 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



the storm ; the waves, dashing furiously over our side, 

 ever and anon rushed to leeward in crimson torrents. 

 Our whole ship sails, spars, and all seemed to par- 

 take of the same ruddy hues. They were as if lighted 

 up by some terrible conflagration. Taking all together, 

 the howling, shrieking storm, the noble ship plunging 

 fearlessly beneath the crimson-crested waves, the furious 

 squalls of hail, snow, and sleet driving over the vessel 

 and falling to leeward in ruddy showers, the mysterious 

 balls of electric fire resting on our mast-heads, yard- 

 arms, &c., and above all the awful sublimity of the 

 heavens, through which coruscations of auroral light 

 would often shoot in spiral streaks and with meteoric 

 brilliancy, altogether presented a scene of grandeur and 

 sublimity surpassing the wildest dreams of fancy.' 



The enormous icebergs which come from out the Ant- 

 arctic seas suggest interesting conclusions respecting 

 regions as yet unexplored. This will be understood when 

 it is remembered that all the larger and loftier icebergs 

 have in reality had their origin in vast glaciers. Vast 

 masses of ice are formed, indeed, in the open sea. 

 Each winter the seas which have been open during the 

 summer months (December, January, and February) 

 are covered over with ice of enormous thickness, and 

 when summer returns the ice-fields thus formed are 

 broken up, and the fragments, borne against each other 

 during storms, become piled into gigantic masses. But 

 the agglomerations thus formed, vast though they are, 

 are far exceeded in magnitude by the true icebergs. 

 c Among the drifting masses of flat sea-ice,' says Tyn- 



