THE EARTH. 101 



If examined more nearly, they are found to be incorporated with 

 earth, stones, and brush-wood, washed fro/n the shore. On these als<r 

 are sometimes found, not only earth, 5u* aests '^vJth br/6V*. J J e'ggs, al 

 several hundred miles from land. The 'generality 'of th-e'se, though 

 almost totally fresh, have nevertheless ' a^h^ck ^fast'of-SvaJt-water fro- 

 zen upon them, probably from the power- that' ice'-hai'rgOnTteivn^s to 

 produce ice. Such mountains as are here described, are most usually 

 seen at spring-time, and after a violent storm, driving out to sea, where 

 they at first terrify the mariner, and are soon after dashed to pieces 

 by the continual washing of the waves ; or driven into the warmer 

 regions of the south, there to be melted away. They sometimes, how- 

 ever, strike back upon their native shores, where they seem to take 

 root at the feet of mountains ; and, as Martius tells us, are sometimes 

 higher than the mountains themselves. Those seen by him were blue, 

 full of clefts and cavities made by the rain, and crowned with snow, 

 which, alternately thawing and freezing every year, augmented their 

 size. These, composed of materials more solid than that driving 

 at sea, presented a variety of agreeable figures to the eye, that 

 with a little help from fancy assumed the appearance of trees in blos- 

 som ; the inside of churches, with arches, pillars, and windows ; and 

 the blue-coloured rays, darting from within, presented the resemblance 

 of a glory. 



If we inquire into the origin and formation of these, which, as we 

 see, are very different from the former, I think we have a very satis- 

 factory account of them in Crantz's History of Greenland ; and I will 

 take leave to give the passage with a very few alterations. " These 

 mountains of ice," says he, " are not salt, like the sea-water, but 

 sweet ; and therefore, can be formed no where except on the moun- 

 tains, in rivers, in caverns, and against the hills near the sea-shore. 

 The mountains of Greenland are so high, that the snow which falls 

 upon them, particularly on the north-side, is in one night's time whol 

 ly converted into ice : they also contain clefts and cavities, where 

 the sun seldom or never injects his rays: besides these, are projec- 

 tions, or landing-places, on the declivities of the steepest hills, where 

 the rain and snow-water lodge, and quickly congeal. When now the 

 accumulated flakes of snow slide down, or fall with the rain from the 

 eminences above, on these prominences ; or, when here and there a 

 mountain-spring comes rolling down to such a lodging-place, where 

 die ice has already seated itself, they all freeze, and add their tribute 

 to it. This, by degrees, waxes to a body of ice, that can no more be 

 overpowered by the sun ; and which, though it may indeed, at cer- 

 tain seasons, diminish by a thaw, yet, upon the whole, through annual 

 acquisitions, it assumes an annual growth. Such a body of ice is 

 often prominent far over the rocks. It does not melt on the upper 

 surface, but underneath ; and often cracks into many larger or smallef 

 clefts, from whence the thawed water trickles out. By this, it be- 

 t % ,omes at last so weak, that being overloaded with its own ponderous 

 bulk, it breaks loose, and tumbles down the rocks with a terrible 

 vrash. Where it happens to overhang a precipice on the shore, it 

 olunges into the deep with a shock like thunder; and with such an 

 agitation of the water, as will overset a boat at some distance, as 



