CHAPTER III. 



ICEBERGS. 



' ' These are 

 The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 

 Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps. 

 And throned eternity in icy halls, 

 Of cold sublimity." 



Byron. 



■MONGr the most imposing and grand of the 

 many wonders of the ocean world, are the 

 fixed and floating icebergs, the " palaces of 

 nature," which assume extraordinary and fan- 

 tastic shapes, and more than realize the most 

 sublime conceptions of the imagination. Well indeed may 

 the mind become awe-struck and the heart almost cease 

 to beat as the lips exclaim, " Wonderful Thou art in all 

 Thy works I Heaven and earth are full of the majesty 

 of Thy glor}^ I" on beholding these mighty and surpassing 

 works of the great Creator. East and west, north and 

 south, the Arctic regions present a picture of grandeur 

 and magnificence nowhere to be equalled — great beyond 

 conception — impossible to be portrayed. 



These icebergs are described by Arctic navigators as 

 imitating every style of architecture on earth ; cathedrals 

 with pillars, arches, portals, and towering pinnacles, over- 

 hanging clifis, the ruins of a marble city, palaces, pyramids, 

 and obelisks; castles with towers, walls, bastions, fortifica- 

 tions, and bridges ; a fleet of colossal men-of-war under full 

 sail; trees, animals, and human beings: one is described as 

 an enormous balloon lying on its side in a collapsed state. 



