. The Arctic world: its plants, animals and natural phenomena [microform] : with a historical sketch of Arctic discovery down to the British Polar Expedition: 1875-76. British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; Zoology; Zoologie. FLOATING ISLES OF ICE. 43 ,^ r '•- .-,. Ai'terwards ho made fast to a larger berg, which he describes as a moving bruaivwuter, and of gigantic jjroportions ; it kept its course steadily towards the north. When he got under weigh, and made for the north-east, through a labyrinth of ice-floes, he Was favoured with a gorgeous spectacle, which h
. The Arctic world: its plants, animals and natural phenomena [microform] : with a historical sketch of Arctic discovery down to the British Polar Expedition: 1875-76. British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; Zoology; Zoologie. FLOATING ISLES OF ICE. 43 ,^ r '•- .-,. Ai'terwards ho made fast to a larger berg, which he describes as a moving bruaivwuter, and of gigantic jjroportions ; it kept its course steadily towards the north. When he got under weigh, and made for the north-east, through a labyrinth of ice-floes, he Was favoured with a gorgeous spectacle, which hardly any excitement of i)eril could have induced him to overlook. The midnight sun came out over the northern crest of the huge berg, kindling variously-coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the ice around one sublime transparency of illuminated gem-work, blazing carbuncles, and rubies and molten gold. Dr. Hayes describes an immense berg which rese' in its general aspect (he West- minster Palace of Sir Charles Barry's creation. It went to ruin before his eyes. First one tall tower tumbled headlong into the water, start- ing from its surface an innumerable swarm of gulls; then another followed; and at length, after five hours of terrible disruption and crashing, not a fragment that rose fifty feet above the water remained of this architectural colossus of ice. These floating isles of ice are carried southward fully two thousand miles from their parent glaciers, to melt in the Atlantic, where they commimicate a perceptible coldness to the water for thirty or forty miles around, while their influence on the atmospheric temperature may be recognized at a greater distance. Their number is extraordinary. As many as seven hundred bergs, each loftier than the dome of St. Paul's, some than the cross of St. Peter's, have been seen at once in the Polar basin; as if the Frost King had despatched an armada to oppose the rash enterprise of man in penetrating within his d
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1876
