no THE OCEAN. 



Contact wiih floating icebergs, when a ship is 

 under sail, is highly dangerous. From the coolness 

 of the air in their immediate neighbourhood, the 

 moisture of the atmosphere is condensed around 

 them ; and hence they are often enveloped in fogs, 

 so as to be invisible within the lengtli of a few 

 fathoms. A momentary relaxation of vigilance on 

 the part of the mariner, may bring the ship's bows 

 on the submerged part of an iceberg, whose sharp, 

 needle-like points, hard as rock, instantly pierce the 

 planking, and perhaps open a fatal leak. Many 

 lamentable shipwrecks have resulted from this cause. 

 In the long heavy swell, so common in the open sea, 

 the peril of floating ice is greatly increased, as the 

 huge angular masses are rolled and ground against 

 each other with a force that nothing can resist. 



These ice-islands are quite distinct in their nature 

 from the field-ice, whicli so largely overspreads the 

 surface of the sea, and are believed to be entirely of 

 land formation, consisting of fresh water frozen. 

 The process of their formation is interestms?: the 

 glens and valleys in the islands of Spitzbergen are 

 filled up with solid ice, which has been accumulating 

 for uncounted ages ; these are the sources from 

 whence the floating icebergs are supplied. Perhaps 

 as long ago as the creation of man, or at least as the 

 deluge, these glaciers began in the snows of winter ; 

 the summer sun melted the surface of the snow, and 

 the water thus produced, sinking down into that 

 wliich remained, saturated it and increased its density. 

 The ensuing winter froze this into a mass of porous 

 ice, and superadded a fresh surface of snow. The 



