MEMOIR OF PENNANT. 
53 
OH them. Those which remaia in this frozen 
dimate, receive continual growth ; others are gra- 
dually wafted by the northern winds into southern 
latitudes, and melt by degrees by the heat of the 
sun, till they waste away, or disappear in the bound- 
less element. 
“ The collision of the great fields of ice in the 
high latitudes, is often attended with a noise that 
for a time takes away the sense of hearing any 
thing else ; and the lesser, with a grinding of im- 
speakable horror. The water which dashes against 
the mountainous ice, freezes into an infinite variety 
of forms, and gives the voyager ideal towers, streets, 
churches, steeples, and every shape that imagination 
can frame. 
“The icebergs or glaciers of the north-east of 
Spitzbergen, are among the capital wonders of the 
country ; they are seven in number, but at consider- 
able distances from each other. Each fills the 
Viilley for tracts unknown, in a region totally in- 
accessible in the internal parts. The glaciers of 
Switzerland seem contemptible to these, but present 
often a similar front in some lower valley. The 
last exhibits, over the sea, a front three hundred 
feet high, emnlating the emerald in colour. Cata- 
racts of melted snow precipitate dcfmi various parts, 
and black spiring mountains, streaked with white, 
bound the sides, and rise crag above crag, as far as 
eye can reach in the back groimd. At times im- 
mense fragments break off, and tumble into the 
