Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage | Page 5

of its cavities.
That is an iceberg, and in that way are all icebergs formed. Mountains
of ice formed by rain and snow-- grand Arctic glaciers, undermined by
the sea or by accumulation over-balanced--topple down upon the
slightest provocation (moved by a shout, perhaps), and where they float,
as this black-looking fellow does, they need deep water. This berg in
height is about ninety feet, and a due balance requires that a mass nine
times as large as the part visible should be submerged. Icebergs are
seen about us now which rise two hundred feet above the water's level.
There are above head plenty of aquatic birds; ashore, or on the ice, are
bears, foxes, reindeer; and in the sea there are innumerable animals. We
shall not see so much life near the North Pole, that is certain. It would
be worth while to go ashore upon an islet there, near Vogel Sang, to
pay a visit to the eider-ducks. Their nests are so abundant that one
cannot avoid treading on them. When the duck is driven by a hungry
fox to leave her eggs, she covers them with down, in order that they
may not cool during her absence, and, moreover, glues the down into a
case with a secretion supplied to her by Nature for that purpose. The
deserted eggs are safe, for that secretion has an odour very disagreeable
to the intruder's nose.
We still sail northward, among sheets of ice, whose boundaries are not
beyond our vision from the masthead--these are "floes;" between them
we find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky to the north a
streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an icy surface; that is,
"ice-blink," in the language of these seas. The glare from snow is
yellow, while open water gives a dark reflection.
Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale is
rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and if she had a
bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we should
not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers dash against a
heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains and battles
fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge of a great ice-field
broken by the swell. It is a perilous and an exciting thing to push
through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field." Masses are
forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors call them
"hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays large "holes of

water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827, Parry adventured with
his men to reach the North Pole, if that should be possible. With
sledges and portable boats they laboured on through snow and over
hummocks, launching their boats over the larger holes of water. With
stout hearts, undaunted by toil or danger, they went boldly on, though
by degrees it became clear to the leaders of the expedition that they
were almost like mice upon a treadmill cage, making a great
expenditure of leg for little gain. The ice was floating to the south with
them, as they were walking to the north; still they went on. Sleeping by
day to avoid the glare, and to get greater warmth during the time of rest,
and travelling by night--watch-makers' days and nights, for it was all
one polar day-- the men soon were unable to distinguish noon from
midnight. The great event of one day on this dreary waste was the
discovery of two flies upon an ice hummock; these, says Parry, became
at once a topic of ridiculous importance. Presently, after twenty-three
miles' walking, they had only gone one mile forward, the ice having
industriously floated twenty-two miles in the opposite direction; and
then, after walking forward eleven miles, they found themselves to be
three miles behind the place from which they started. The party
accordingly returned, not having reached the Pole, not having reached
the eighty-third parallel, for the attainment of which there was a reward
of a thousand pounds held out by government. They reached the
parallel of eighty-two degrees forty-five minutes, which was the most
northerly point trodden by the foot of man.
From that point they returned. In those high latitudes they met with a
phenomenon, common in alpine regions, as well as at the Pole, red
snow; the red colour being caused by the abundance of a minute plant,
of low development, the last dweller on the borders of the vegetable
kingdom. More interesting to the sailors was a fat she bear which they
killed and devoured with a zeal