TJIE EARTH. 171 



some black. Jf examined more nearly, they are found to be in. 

 corporated with earth, stones, and brush-wood, washed from the 

 shore. On these also are sometimes found, not only earth, bui 

 nests with birds' eggs, at several hundred miles from land. The 

 generality of these, though almost totally fresh, have neverthe- 

 less a thick crust of salt-water frozen upon them, probably from 

 the power that ice has sometimes to produce ice. Such moun- 

 tains 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, 

 however, strike back upon their native shores, where they seem 

 to *^ake 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 oi 

 materials more solid than that driving at sea, presented a variety 

 of agreeable figures to the eye, that with a little help from faticy 

 assumed the appearance of trees in blossom ; the inside of 

 churches, with arches, pillars, and windows ; and the blue-col- 

 oured rays, darting from within, presented the resemblance ot 

 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 satisfacton,' account of them in Crantz's History of Green- 

 land ; and I will take leave to give the passage with a very few 

 alterations. " These mount-ams of ice," says he, " are not salt, 

 like the sea-water, but sweet ; and, therefore, can be formed no- 

 where except on the mountains, in livers, in caverns, and against 

 the hills near the sea -shore. The mountains of Greenland are 

 80 high that the snow which falls upon them, particidarly on the 

 north. side, is in one night's time wholly converted irto ice : they 

 also contain clefts and cavities, where the sun seldom or never 

 injects his rays ; besides these, are projections, or landing places, 

 on the decJi\-ities of the steepest hills, where the rain and snow. 

 water lodge, and quickly congeal. When now tlie accumulated 

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

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



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