THE ARCTIC SEAS. 141 
witnessed in Newfoundland and Lower Canada, some 
of which I have alluded to elsewhere ;* in the former 
country it is not uncommon for the vapour of a 
sleeping-room, condensed on the windows and walls, 
to take the form of thin narrow blades of ice stand- 
ing out horizontally, very closely set together; the 
whole making a dense coating, of more than half an 
inch in thickness, of spongy frost. In the first win- 
ter spent at Melville Island by Captain Parry, an ac- 
cumulation of a similar substance was observed, that 
was really astonishing. “The Hecla was fitted with 
double windows in her stern, the interval between 
the two sashes being about two feet; and within 
these some curtains of baize had been nailed close in 
. the early part of the winter. On endeavouring now 
to remove the curtains, they were found to be so 
strongly cemented to the windows by the frozen 
vapour collected between them, that it was neces- 
sary to cut them off, in order to open the windows; 
and from the space between the double sashes we 
‘ removed more than twelve large buckets full of ice, 
or frozen vapour, which had accumulated in the sare 
manner.” 
The shooting out of crystals of beautiful forms, 
when vapour is deposited upon any very cold sub- 
stance, is a very pleasing phenomenon. The feather- 
like hoar-froast, so often seen in winter on stems and 
blades of grass, is of this character. But it is in the 
icy seas of the north that this beauty is seen in per- 
fection. For an interesting description, we have 
again recourse to Mr. Scoresby. ‘In the course of 
* Canadian Naturalist, 350. ¢ Parry’s First Voyage, 146. 
