166 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
portant to us, as a means of taking observations, 
as well as gratifying to nature by the animation 
which its presence imparts. As the mist rapidly 
dispersed the land soon presented its variegated 
and richly stratified cliff to our view: over the 
face of which lofty boundary, in extensive recesses 
from the summit, the three celebrated icebergs were 
united. These polar glaciers, created by the melt- 
ing of the snow under the summer sun, being 
annually increased by the frozen severity of winter, 
were sublimely grand ; they were upwards of 1,200 
feet in altitude, and resembled immense cataracts 
curving to the form of the cliffs, over which they 
passed; while patches of snow, not unlike foam, 
gave a pleasing variety to the dark front of rock 
to which they were united by frozen ties; and 
ridges of the same attracted the attention by the 
relief they bestowed upon this sterile boundary. 
Just as we arrived at the south point, the sun had 
acquired power to disperse the misty vapour that 
was mantling the brow of the cliff, and in a short 
time it withdrew its fleecy curtain, and unfolded 
to our sight, the magnificent and lofty mountain 
of Beeringberg, or Bear’s Mountain, which from 
its extraordinary steepness, can only be accessible 
to these lords of the soil. To say that I was lost in 
astonishment, on beholding this wonderful pro- 
montory, is saying too little, for language cannot 
express my feelings, on beholding the transition 
produced in one minute by the vanishing of a dense 
fog. Part of this colossal feature was exhibited, 
