GLACIER AND ICEBERG. 651 



threaten the mariner. Except during a brief interval of summer, the 

 access to Spitzbergen is barred by a formidable barrier of ice, and the 

 channels between the different islands are so blocked up by the same 

 material, that it was long doubted whether Spitzbergen was not one 

 large island deeply fissured and intersected by creek and gulf. It is 

 wholly uninhabited, but the voyager landing at certain points of the 

 coast in Madeleine Bay, for example treads at every step upon 

 human bones thickly scattered over the snow, pell-mell with the 

 bones of bears and seals, and upon the ghastly memorials of empty 

 or half-open coffins. These are the remains, the last relics, of unfortu- 

 nate seamen slain by cold and hunger in these desolate regions. For 

 want of strength to dig decent graves, on account of the thickness of 

 the ice, the survivors load the coffins with pieces of rock to act as a 

 rampart against the wild beasts. But " the great man in a pelisse," 

 as the Norwegian hunters denominate the white bear, has stout arms, 

 and, impelled by famine, he frequently succeeds in displacing the 

 stones, and making a hideous banquet off the frozen bodies. 



The very ocean which washes this gloomy coast shows us the 

 Arctic Desert under a form which is at once more imposing, more 

 majestic, and more terrible. On its surface float vast fields, moun- 

 tains, and banks of ice, far more formidable to the mariner than the 

 typhoons and cyclones of the Torrid Zone. These floating ice- 

 mountains proceed, as I have said, from the terrestrial glaciers which, 

 in these latitudes, descend to the margin of the sea, frequently 

 project a considerable distance beyond the coast, and, loosened by 

 their own weight or by the incessant clash and collision of the waves, 

 splinter into enormous fragments. Hence it is that their ice, when 

 liquefied, supplies a fresh, sweet, and wholesome water for drinking 

 purposes. Their outlines are of the most fantastic, and often of the 

 most beautiful character ; old ruined keeps of Norman castles, long 

 lines of frowning battlements, minarets and domes of Moorish mosques, 

 and the tapering spires, arched roofs, and flying buttresses of mediaeval 

 cathedrals. Lit up by the radiance of an Arctic sun, they wear a 



