ICEBERGS. 



53 



with smooth water, and a mild climate, that is to say, 

 the thermometer was not below 39°. OfF the Falk- 

 land Islands, with an E. S. E. wind, it fell to 35°* 

 This temperature seemed cold to persons recently 

 come from a residence of more than six months in 

 one of the hottest parts of the world, but, upon the 

 whole, the season was finer than that of the corre- 

 spondent north latitude. 



When off the Cape in 57° south, and longitude 

 69° west, we fell in with four ice islands ; two of 

 these were very high and long : the other two were 

 about twenty yards long, and as they floated not 

 more than ten or twelve feet out of the water, 

 would, in all probability, not have been seen at 

 night till too near to be avoided. Next day an im- 

 mense island was seen, which could not have been 

 less than two or three hundred feet high, and a quar- 

 ter of a mile long. This was in 56^"^ south, and 

 longitude 65° west. Some days afterwards, we fell 

 in with an American Whaler which had passed more 

 to the southward in 58°^ where he not only met with 

 innumerable ice islands, but with an extensive com- 

 pact field, as far as the eye could reach. He found 

 ^ himself in the morning almost beset, and it cost him 

 nearly twenty-four hours beating among the floating 



