198 THE ICE-BLINK. 



Greenland before his father, who followed him in 

 the Fame. The following is his account of the 

 circumstance : 



" On my return to the ship, about eleven o'clock, 

 the night was beautifully fine and the air quite 

 mild. The atmosphere, 'in consequence of the 

 warmth, being in a highly refractive state, a great 

 many .curious appearances were presented by the 

 land and icebergs. The most extraordinary effect 

 of this state of the atmosphere, however, was the 

 distinct inverted image of a ship in the clear sky, 

 over the middle of the large bay or inlet, the ship 

 itself being entirely beyond the horizon. Appear- 

 ances of this kind I have before noticed, but the 

 peculiarities of this were the perfection of the 

 image, and the great distance of the vessel that it 

 represented. It was so extremely well defined, that, 

 when examined with a telescope, I could distinguish 

 every sail, the general 'rig of the ship/ and its 

 peculiar character ; insomuch that I confidently 

 pronounced it to be my father's ship the Fame, 

 which it afterwards proved to be, though, on com- 

 paring notes with my father, I found that our rela- 

 tive positions at the time gave our distance from one 

 another very nearly thirty miles, being about seven- 

 teen miles beyond the horizon, and some leagues 

 beyond the line of direct vision." 



Scoresby was, perhaps, one of the most persever- 

 ing and intelligent observers of nature that ever 

 went to the polar seas. His various accounts of 



