256 



THE SEA. 



camping-, and enjoying a refreshing sleep, he climbed a steep hill-side to the summit of a 

 ruo-o-ed cliff, about 800 feet above the sea level, from which he soon understood the cause of 



OO s * 



their arrested progress. " The ice was everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of 

 the bay across which I had endeavoured to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of 

 the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it meandered to the eastward, 

 it expanded as the delta of some mighty river discharging into the ocean, and under a water- 

 sky, which hung upon the northern and eastern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. 



THE SCHOOXER " UNITED STATES AT TOUT FOULKE. 



''Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim outline the white 

 sloping summit of a noble headland, the most northern known land upon the globe. I 

 judged it to be in the latitude of 82 30', or 450 miles from the North Pole. Nearer, 

 another bold cape stood forth, and nearer still the headland, for which I had been steering 

 my course the day before, rose majestically from the sea, as if pushing up into the very 

 skies, a lofty mountain peak, upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. 

 There was no land visible except the coast upon which I stood. 



"The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter 

 being either soft decaying ice, or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These 

 spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they receded, until 

 the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into one uniform colour of dark blue. 



