ICE. 
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nor are we likely to see. In fact, the lofty ice mountains 
that wander like vagrant islands along the coast of 
America, seldom or never come to the eastward or 
northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, 
and are all generated among bays and straits within 
Baffin’s Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal 
to the southward of Iceland; whereas the Polar ice, 
among which we have been knocking about, is field ice, 
and—except when packed one ledge above the other, 
by great pressure—is comparatively flat. I do not think 
I saw any pieces that were piled up higher than thirty 
or thirty-five feet above the sea-level, although at a 
little distance through the mist they may have loomed 
much loftier. 
In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colours, 
these wonderful masses surpassed everything I had 
imagined ; and we found endless amusement in watch¬ 
ing their fantastic procession. 
At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in 
sapphire mail, a white plume above his casque. Or a 
cathedral window with shafts of chrysophras, new pow¬ 
dered by a snow-storm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis 
lazuli; or a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its 
