THE ARCTIC SEAS. 141 



witnessed in Newfoundland and Lower Canada, some 

 of which I have alluded to elsewhere ;* in the former 

 country it is not uncommon for the vapour of a 

 sleeping-room, condensed on the windows and walls, 

 to take the form of thin narrow blades of ice stand- 

 ing out horizontally, very closely set together; the 

 whole making a dense coating, of more than half an 

 inch in thickness, of spongy frost. In the first win- 

 ter spent at Melville Island by Captain Parry, an ac- 

 cumulation of a similar substance was observed, that 

 was really astonishing. " The Hecla was fitted with 

 double windows in her stern, the interval between 

 the two sashes being about two feet; and within 

 these some curtains of baize had been nailed close in 

 the early part of the winter. On endeavouring now 

 to remove the curtains, they were found to be so 

 strongly cemented to the windows by the frozen 

 vapour collected between them, that it was neces- 

 sary to cut them off, in order to open the windows ; 

 and from the space between the double sashes we 

 removed more than twelve large buckets full of ice, 

 or frozen vapour, which had accumulated in the same 

 manner."f 



The shooting out of crystals of beautiful forms, 

 when vapour is deposited upon any very cold sub- 

 stance, is a very pleasing phenomenon. The feather- 

 like hoar-froast, so often seen in winter on steins and 

 blades of grass, is of this character. But it is in the 

 icy seas of the north that this beauty is seen in per- 

 fection. For an interesting description, we have 

 again recourse to Mr. Scoresby. " In the course of 



* Canadian Naturalist, 350. f Parry's First Voyage, 146. 



