168 
HAZARDOUS TRAVEL. 
■* 
twenty-feet wall just beyond, creaking and groaning 
and even nodding its crest with a grave cold wel¬ 
come : it is the ‘seam of the second ice.’ Tumble 
over it at the first gap, and you are upon the first 
ice: tumble over that, and you are at the ice-foot; 
and there is nothing else now between you and the 
rocks, and nothing after them between you and the 
observatory. 
“ But be a little careful as you come near this ice-foot. 
It is munching all the time at the first ice, and you 
have to pick your way over the masticated fragments. 
Don’t trust yourself to the half-balanced, half-fixed, 
half-floating ice-lumps, unless you relish a bath like 
Marshal Suwarrow’s,—it might be more pleasant if 
you were sure of getting out,—but feel your way 
gingerly, with your pole held crosswise, not disdaining 
lowly attitudes,—hands and knees, or even full length. 
That long wedge-like hole just before you, sending 
up its puffs of steam into the cold air, is the ‘seam 
of the ice-foot:’ you have only to jump it and you 
are on the smooth level ice-foot itself. Scramble up 
the rocks now, get on your wooden shoes, and go to 
work observing an oscillating needle for some hours 
to come. 
“Astronomy, as it draws close under the pole-star, 
cannot lavish all its powers of observation on things 
above. It was the mistake of Mr. Sontag some months 
ago; when he wandered about for an hour on his way 
to the observatory, and was afraid after finding it to 
try and wander back. I myself had a slide down an 
