THE JOURNAL OF M. J. DUMONT-D’URVILLE. 445 
by the high cliffs of ice. In passing at their base we were well able 
to judge of the height which these icebergs attain. Their perpen- 
dicular walls towered above our masts; they overhung our ships, 
whose dimensions seemed ridiculously diminutive compared with these 
enormous masses. The spectacle which presented itself to our gaze 
was at once grand and terrifying. One could imagine oneself in the 
narrow streets of a city of giants. At the foot of these immense masses 
we perceived vast caverns hollowed out by the sea, where the waves 
rushed in with a roar. The sun darted oblique rays on the immense 
walls of ice, which resembled crystal. The effects of light and shade 
were truly magical and striking. From the top of these ice mountains 
there leaped into the sea numerous streams, caused by the apparently 
very active melting of the snow. We often saw in front of us two 
icebergs so near each other that we lost sight of the land towards 
which we were steering. We could then only see two straight, 
threatening walls rising up beside us. The orders of the officers 
were echoed several times by these gigantic masses, which threw 
the sounds of the voice from one to the other; when our eyes fell 
on the Zélée, following us at a short distance, she looked so small 
and her masts seemed so slender, that we could not suppress a feeling 
of alarm. For nearly an hour we saw nothing round us but vertical 
walls of ice. Then we reached a vast basin formed by the land on one 
side, and on the other by the chain of floating islands through which 
we had just passed. At midday we were not more than three or four 
miles from our new discovery. 
The land which was in sight showed now such irregularities as it 
possessed ; it stretched ag far as one could see to south-east and north- 
west, and in these two directions its limits were invisible. It was 
entirely covered with snow, and might reach a height of 1000 to 1200 
metres. Nowhere was there any striking peak. Nowhere was any 
spot to be seen which indicated soil, and one could almost believe that 
we had before us an ice-pack considerably larger than any we had met, 
granting the possibility of any pack attaining such a prodigious height. 
The shore presented everywhere a vertical cliff of ice, hke those we 
had noticed in the floating islands we had just passed. This aspect 
of the coast was so like that presented by the floating icebergs (glaces) 
that we had never hesitated about their formation. Besides this, at 
several points along the shore we noticed a great quantity of floating 
ice, apparently scarcely separated from the shore where they had been 
formed, and only waiting for the winds and currents to gain the open 
sea. The higher parts of the land presented everywhere a uniform 
hue, reaching the sea by a gentle incline; owing to this formation 
we could see at a glance a considerable stretch of land. At several 
points we noticed that the surface of the snow which covered the land 
was ploughed up. One could distinguish regular waves like those 
