J 28 THE OCEAN. 



of wliicli I liave alluded to elsewhere ;* in the formei 

 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 

 winter spent at Melville Island by Captain Parry, an 

 accumulation 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 endeavour- 

 ing 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 

 necessary 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."t 



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-frost, so often seen in winter on stems and 

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

 icy seas of the north that this beauty is seen in 

 perfection. For an interesting description, we have 

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

 the night, the rigging of the ship was most splendidly 



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



