GOTHIC ICEBERG. 



85 



berg; but ice movements are as mysterious almost as the mag- 

 netic pole. The captain told me that he had known two vessels 

 to be beset near each other in the ice, and in a few days, though 

 the same ice was around each vessel, yet they would be many 

 miles apart! Bergs have been known to approach and recede 

 from each other in as beautiful and stately a manner as partners 

 in the old-fashioned, courtly dances of years gone by. 



Of the various bergs I particularly noticed, a few descriptive 

 words may here be said. The first view of one that attracted my 

 attention looked as if an old castle was before me. The ruins of 

 a lofty dome about to fall, and a portion of an arched roof already 

 tumbling down, were conspicuous. Then, in a short time, this 

 changed to a picture of an elephant with two large circular tow- 

 ers on his back, and Corinthian spires springing out boldly from 

 the broken mountains of alabaster on which he had placed his 

 feet. The third view, when at a greater distance, made it like a 

 light-house on the top of piled-up rocks, white as the driven snow. 

 It took no great stretch of fancy to finish the similitude when the 

 sun to-day, for nearly the first time during a week, burst forth in 

 all its splendor, bathing with its flood of golden fire this towering 

 iceberg light-house ! 



Another berg I could not help calling the Gothic iceberg. 



GOTHIC ICE15EKG. 



The side facing me had a row of complete arches of the true 

 Gothic order, and running its whole length were mouldings, 

 smooth projections of solid ice, rivaling in the beauty of all their 

 parts any thing I ever saw. The architecture, frieze, and cornice 



