REVIEWS — THE STORY OF A BOULPER. 497 



with a noise like the thundering of cannon. The disparted portions are then 

 carried towards the equator by currents, and may be encountered by hundreds 

 floating in open sea. Their first form is flat, but, as they travel on, they assume 

 every variety of shape and size. 



On the shores of brackish seas, such as the Baltic, or along a coast where tlie 

 salt water is freshened by streams or snow-drifts from the land, sheets of ice also 

 frequently form during severe frosts. Sand and boulders are thus frozen in, es- 

 pecially where a layer of ice has formed upon the sea-bottom.* The action of 

 gales or tides is sufficient to break up these masses, which are then either driven 

 ashore and frozen in a fresh cake of ice, or blown awav to sea. The bergs formed 

 in this way have originally a low flat outline, and may extend as ice fields over 

 an area of many miles, while, at a later time, they may be seen towering precipi- 

 tously as great hill?, some 200 or 300 feet high. 



Few sights in nature are more imposing than that of the huge, solitary iceberg, 

 as, regardless alike of wind and tide, it steers its course across the face of the 

 deep, far away from land. Like one of the " Hrim-thursar," or Fi-ost- giants of 

 Scandinavian mythology,! ^^ issues from the portals of the north, armed with 

 great blocks of stone. Proudly it sails on. The waves that dash in foam against 

 its sides shake not the strength of its crystal walls, nor tarnish the sheen of its 

 emerald caves. Sleet and snow, storm and tempest, are its congenial elements. 

 Night falls around, and the stars are reflected tremulously from a thousand peaks, 

 and from the green depths of " caverns measureless to man." Dawn again arises, 

 and the slant rays of the rising sun gleam brightly on every projecting crag and 

 pinnacle, as the berg still floats steadily on ; yet, as it gains more southern lati- 

 tudes, what could not be accomplished by the united fury of the waves, is slowly 

 efl'ected by the mildness of the climate. The floating island becomes gradually 

 shrouded in mist and spume, and streamlets everywhere trickle down its sides, 

 and great crags ever and anon fall with a sullen plunge into the deep. The mass 



* I was hiformed by the late Mr. Hugh Miller, that a seam of shale abounding in liassic 

 fossils, had been found intercalated among the boulder-clay beds in the vicinity of Eathie. 

 He explained its occurrence there by supposing that it liad formed a reef along a shore 

 where ground-ice was forming ; and so having been firmly frozen in, it was torn up on the 

 breaking of the ice, and deposited at a distance among the mud at the sea-bottoro. 



t The account of the origin of these giants, as given in the prose Edda, is very graphic, 

 and may be not inaptly quoted here :— " A¥hen the rivers tlrat are called Elivag'ar liad flowed 

 far from their sources," replied Har, " the venom which they rolled along hardened, as does 

 dross that runs from a furnace, and became ice. "When tire rivers flowed no longer, and the 

 ice stood still, the vapour arising from the venom gathered over it and froze to rime : and in 

 this manner was formed in Ginnungagap many layers of congealed vapoiir, piled one over 

 the other." — " That part of Ginnungagap," added Jafnhar, " that lies towards the north, 

 was thus filled with heavy masses of gelid vapour and ice, whilst evei'ywhere within were 

 whirlwinds and fleeting mists. But the soutliern part of Ginnungagap was lighted by the 

 sparks and flakes that flew into it from Muspellheim. . . . When the heated blast met 

 the gelid vapour, it melted into drops, and, by the miglit of him who sent the heat, these 

 drops quickened into life, and took a liuman semblance. The being thus formed was named 

 Tmir, from whom descend the race of the Prost-giants (Hrim-thursar), as it is said in the 

 Volusp^, 'From Vidolph came all witches; from Vilmeitli all Wizards; from Svarthofdi all 

 poison-seekers ; and all giants from Ymir.' ''—See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, edit. Bohn, 

 p. 402. 



