56 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
The southern icebergs do not circulate in straits and channels already 
formed, like those of the North Pole, hut in enormous detached blocks 
which hug the land. Sometimes in shallow water they form belts 
parallel to the base of the cliffs, intersected by a small number ot 
sinuous narrow channels. These icy cliffs present a face more or less 
disintegrated as they approximate to the rocky shore. The blocks of i<-’ e 
form at first huge prisms, or tabular, regular masses of a whitish paste; 
but they get used up by degrees, and rounded off and separated under 
the action of the waves, which chafe them, and their colour becomes 
more and more limpid and bluish. They ascend freely towards the 
north, in spite of the winds and currents which carry them towards | 
the Equator. One year with another these floating icebergs accuniU' 
late with very striking differences, and it is only by a rare chance that 
they open up a free passage such as Captain Weddell had discovered- 
These floating islands of ice have been met with in thirty-five degrees 
south latitude, and even as high as Cape Horn. 
The two Erench ships frequently found themselves shut up in the 
icebergs, which continued to press upon them, and driven before the 
north winds, until the south wind again dispersed their vast masses, 
enabling them to issue from their prison in health and safety. 
some cases D’Urville found it necessary to force his ship through 
fields of ice by which ho was surrounded and imprisoned, and to cm 
his way by force through the accumulating blocks, using the corvette 
as a sort of battering-ram. In 1838 he recognised, about fifty league^ 
from the South Orkney Isles, a coast, to which he gave the name of 
Louis Philippes and Joinville's Land. This coast is covered with 
enormous masses of ice, which seemed to rise to the height of two 
thousand six hundred feet. Pmss discovered still more lofty peaks, 
such as Mount Penny and Mount Haddington, rising about seveo 
thousand feet. The English navigator states that this land is only a 
great island. The crew of D’Urville’s ship being sicldy and over' 
worked, he returned to the port of Chili, whence he again issued f° r 
the South Pole in the following January. 
On this occasion his approach was made from a point diametrically 
opposite to the former. He very soon found himself in the middle 
the ice. He discovered within the Antarctic Circle land, to which l 10 
gave the name of Adelia's Land. The long and lofty cliffs of tld 3 
island or continent he describes as being surrounded by a belt 
