152 



THE WOKLD OF LIFE 



that of the south wind was almost everything. The great annual 

 battle between summer and winter in these regions is the one event 

 of the year: it only lasts a fortnight, during which a cold winter 

 is transformed into a hot sunmier." 



He then gives a most interesting account of the breaking up 

 of the ice on the great north-flowing rivers till they become 

 roaring floods of muddy water, crowded with lumps of melted 

 ice of all shapes and sizes. On the 20th May he had just 

 crossed the Petchora to Ust-Zylma, over ice which was already 

 cracking. 



" It was past midnight, and at any moment the crash might 

 come. Cracks running for miles, with a noise like distant thunder, 



Fig. 17. — loe Breaking up on the 

 Petchora River. 



warned us that a mighty power was all but upon us, a force which 

 seemed to impress the mind with a greater sense of power than 

 even the crushing weight of water at Niagara, a force which breaks 

 up the ice more than a mile wide, at least tliree feet thick, and 

 weighted with another three feet of snow, at tlie rate of a hundred 



