88 



AECTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION. 



limit of expansion ! Sketching as it then appeared, the preceding 

 may give the idea, so unnatural was the goddess as she arose from 

 her ocean bed to-night. But this, however, did not last long. A 

 few moments sufficed to carry her upward in her regal course be- 

 yond the influence of ' Nature on a spree,' and a short time after- 

 ward, as I looked again, I found 



" ' How calmly gliding through the dark blue sky, 

 The midnight moon ascends.' 



"August 6th. Going on deck this morning, found Nature again 

 on a spree. I have been observing its working for two hours. I 

 will record some of its phenomena. 



" When I first observed the unnatural appearance of the bergs, 

 sea, and islands toward the southwest, the morning sun was ten 

 degrees high, and shining brightly. The barometer then stood 

 29.35 inches, the thermometer 41°, wind blowing moderately from 

 southwest. Looking to windward, I saw the top of a distant berg ; 

 then all at once a snow-white spot, not larger than a pin's head, 

 appeared in the clouds hanging directly over the berg. In a few 

 seconds it enlarged to the size of an Egyptian pyramid inverted. 

 At every roll of the vessel this resplendently white pyramid 

 seemed to descend and kiss the sea, and then as often ascended 

 again to its celestial throne. 



"Dioptrics, the science of refracted light, may satisfactorily ac- 

 count for all this, but I very much doubt it. Some land that was 

 seventy-five miles distant, and the top of it only barely seen in an 

 ordinary way, had its rocky base brought full in view. The 

 whole length of this land in sight was the very symbol of distor- 

 tion. Pendent from an even line that stretched along the heav- 

 ens was a ridge of mountains. 'Life hangs upon a little thread,' 

 but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? In my 

 fancy I said, if Fate had decreed one of the sisters to cut that 

 thread while I witnessed the singular spectacle, what convulsions 

 upon the land and the sea about us might not have followed? 

 But Nature had an admirable way of taking down these rock 

 giants hanging between the heavens and the earth. Arch after 

 arch was at length made in wondrous grandeur from that rugged 

 and distorted atmospheric land ; and if ever man's eye rested upon 

 the sublime, in an act of (rod's creative power, it was when he 

 arcuated the heavens with such a line of stupendous mountains ! 

 Between these several mountain arches in the sky were hung ice- 

 bergs, also inverted, moving silently and majestically about as the 



