CHAP. XL.] ICEBERGS. 273 



there was any mud, stones, or fragments of rock on any one of 

 these floating masses, but after examining about forty of them 

 without perceiving any signs of foreign matter, I left the deck 

 when it was growing dusk. My questions had excited the 

 curiosity of the captain and officers of the ship, who assured me 

 they had never seen any stones on a berg, observing, at the same 

 time, that they had always been so eager to get out of their 

 way, and in such a state of anxiety when near them, that such 

 objects might easily have been overlooked. I had scarcely gone 

 below ten minutes, when one of the passengers came to tell me 

 that the captain had seen a black mass as large as a boat on an 

 iceberg, about 150 feet high, which was very near. By aid of a 

 glass, it was made out distinctly to be a space about nine feet 

 square covered with black stones. The base of the berg on the 

 side toward the steamer was GOO feet long, and from the dark 

 spot to the water s edge, there was a stripe of soiled ice, as if the 

 water streaming down a slope, as the ice melted, had carried 

 mud suspended in it. In the soiled channel were seen two 

 blocks, each about the size of a man s head. Although I re 

 turned instantly to the deck when the berg was still in sight, 

 such was then the haziness of the air, and the rapidity of our 

 motion, that the dark spot was no longer discernible. Such in 

 stances of the transportation of rocks by ice, occurrences most 

 interesting to geologists, were first recorded by Scoresby, in the 

 northern hemisphere ; but from the accounts given me by Sir 

 James Ross and Dr. Joseph Hooker, they are evidently much 

 more common in the icebergs drifted from the antarctic than 

 from those of the arctic regions. 



When we were among the ice, the temperature of the water 

 was 45 Fahrenheit. On the day before we came up with it, 

 the passengers had already begun to look out warmer clothing, 

 and shawls and great coats were in requisition. Occasionally we 

 were steering among small pieces of ice, and the wheel at the 

 helm was turned iirst one way and then another, reminding me 

 of the dangers of the Mississippi, when we were avoiding the 

 bumping against logs. In the fore part of the vessel the watch 

 was trebled, some aloft and others below, and we went on at the 



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