out of their own frozen bosoms.  A distinguished navigator of our own time has compared the appearance of these bergs, after their regularity of shape is lost, and they begin to assume the fantastic outlines that uniformly succeed, to that of a deserted town, built of the purest alabaster, with its edifices crumbling under the seasons, and its countless unpeopled streets, avenues and alleys.  All who have seen the sight unite in describing it as one of the most remarkable that comes from the lavish hand of nature.

About nine o’clock on the memorable night in question, there was a good deal of fog driving over the ocean to increase the obscurity.  This rendered Daggett doubly cautious, and he actually hauled up close to the wind, heading off well to the westward, in order to avoid running in among the bergs, in greater uncertainty than the circumstances would seem to require.  Of course Roswell followed the movement; and when the moon first diffused its mild rays on the extraordinary scene, the two schooners were pitching into a heavy sea, within less than a mile of the weather-line of the range of bergs.  It was soon apparent that floes or field ice accompanied the floating mountains, and extended so far to the southward of them as to be already within an inconvenient if not hazardous proximity to the two vessels.  These floes, however, unlike those previously encountered, were much broken by the undulations of the waves, and seldom exceeded a quarter of a mile in diameter; while thousands of them were no larger than the ordinary drift ice of our own principal rivers in the time of a freshet.  Their vicinity to the track of the schooners, indeed, was first ascertained by the noise they produced in grinding against each other, which soon made itself audible even above the roaring of the gale.

Both of our masters now began to be exceedingly uncomfortable.  It was soon quite apparent that Daggett had been too bold, and had led down towards the ice without sufficient caution and foresight.  As the moon rose, higher and higher, the difficulties and dangers to leeward became at each minute more and more apparent.  Nothing could have been more magnificent than the scene which lay before the eyes of the mariners, or would have produced a deeper feeling of delight, had it not been for the lively consciousness of the risk the two schooners and all who were in them unavoidably ran, by being so near and to windward of such an icy coast, if one may use the expression as relates to floating bodies.  By that light it was very easy to imagine Wilkes’ picture of a ruined town of alabaster.  There were arches of all sizes and orders; pinnacles without number; towers, and even statues and columns.  To these were to be added long lines of perpendicular walls, that it was easy enough to liken to fortresses, dungeons and temples.  In a word, even the Alps, with all their peculiar grandeur, and certainly on a scale so vastly more enlarged, possess no one aspect that is so remarkable for its resemblance to the labours of man, composed of a material of the most beautiful transparency, and considered as the results of human ingenuity, on a scale so gigantic.  The glaciers have often been likened, and not unjustly, to a frozen sea; but here were congealed mountains seemingly hewed into all the forms of art, not by the chisel it is true, but by the action of the unerring laws which produced them.