VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
119 
destruction ; some of these masses came with great 
violence against the ship. 
The fog at length yielded, and became 
less dense, and we found ourselves not a 
hundred and fifty yards from the rugged frozen 
ridge of a field of ice, on which were monstrous 
masses,— one of them resembling a castle — with a 
water blink stretching across the horizon. About 
noon the fog had totally subsided, and from the 
stillness of the day and the brightness of the sun, 
the surface of the ocean like a most dazzling mirror, 
reflected the perfect representation of the four ships 
in company, every rope in which was distinctly ex- 
hibited. Among the different objects so pleasingly 
reflected, I could not avoid noticing the effect pro- 
duced from drops of oil exuding from the jaw-bones 
of a whale which we had killed, and which were 
suspended at the bows of the ship. When a drop 
of oil fell from these into the water, the colours pro- 
duced from refraction were those of the prism in 
their richest hues ; and they continued to change in 
character and form by the slightest undulation of 
that great body of water, so that they were rendered 
as various as the colours of the kaleidoscope and 
infinitely finer in their tints. 
At ten o'clock at night the ice was observed to 
be in rapid motion, in a course opposed to our 
proceeding westward ; at this time some of the 
richest clouds I ever beheld, were lining the canopy 
of heaven : the extraordinary blueness of the water, 
and its peculiar transparency were astonishingly 
