Sunbeam of summer, oh, what is like thee, The faith touching all things with hues of heaven. -MRS. HEMANS. 4. ICEBERGS. Icebergs are the glory and the terror of the Arctic seas. Although they have lost much of their Titanic grandeur before they get as far south as the track of Atlantic's liners, they are still both formidable and imposing objects. Looked at from afar an iceberg assumes curious and fantastic form, seeming some floating pyramid, some vast cathedral with flying buttress and spires silhouette against the sky, or some ship as ghostly as the fated Flying Dutchman, tenantless, with never a man at the frozen wheel. It is floating calmly and majestically down the current of the ocean into the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, where it will eventually end its journey by melting into mist. The bergs that are seen in the regular track of Atlantic and Pacific steamers this season have been on their voyage from two to ten years, according to their tonnage. Bergs are born daily in the great frozen fields of the Arctic circle, but most of them remain in native waters a long time before they escape and are considerably reduced in bulk before they can the Grand Banks in the Atlantic and wander South as tourists in the path of travel. pass Bergs are born of glaciers; the large ones may be a thousand years old before they finally reach the coast and drop into the sea. Four out of every five floating masses in the Atlantic come from Greenland; the fifth may be from Spitzbergen Sea, Frobisher's Sound, or Hudson Strait. A glacier is a river of solid water confined in the depressions running down the mountain-sides. Soft and powdery snow falls upon the summits, and though some is evaporated, the yearly fall is greater than the yearly loss, so the excess is pushed down the slope into valleys which in Greenland on the east or Alaska on the west lead to the ocean. Propelled by the weight and force of its upper part, it is pushed into the sea often to a considerable distance, ploughing its slow way on the bottom, tearing up the rocks and the reefs that lie in its path. The immense fragments that make the icebergs may be separated from the end of the glacier in two different ways, according to the temperature of the sea into which they protrude. In Spitzbergen and on the coast of southern Greenland, the mass which frequently projects far into the sea is gradually undermined by the com paratively warm waters which beat against it, and the remaining fragments overhanging the water are detached, and with terrible commotion plunge into the ocean. But in very cold seas, like that of Smith Strait, the water being of low temperature, cannot melt the glacier, which continues its course into the bay, its extreme end reaching far into the depths of the ocean, like an immense plane gliding on rocks. Though lighter than the water, the enormous frozen mass is kept together below the surface by the force of cohesion. But a time comes when it must break apart, and then the broken piece shoots upward to the surface, impelled by its less specific gravity. The total height of an iceberg always exceeds six or eight times the height of the part above water; the submerged portion, however, is dependent on the bulk of the berg. Icebergs have been met by vessels which were three or four hundred feet above water, whose mass must have been from twenty-one hundred to twenty-eight hundred feet in perpendicular height. When such a berg floats into a warmer sea, its base melts more rapidly than its top, resulting in a somersault, the vast mass turning over and over until it recovers its centre of gravity. The ice-masses approach the equator from both poles; they hug the curren's which seize them; but, owing to the greater warmth of the northern hemisphere, icebergs have often been found two hundred and fifty miles nearer the equator in the southern than in the northern hemisphere. 5. NIAGARA FALLS. I. Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tourists travel to see, at least of all those which I have seen, I am inclined to give the palm to the Falls of Niagara, In the catalogue of such sights I intend to include all buildings, pictures, statues, and wonders of art made by men's hands, and also all beauties of nature, prepared by the Creator for the delight of his creatures. This is a long word; but, as far as my taste and judgment go, it is justified. I know no other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, so powerful. I came across an artist at Niagara, who was attempting to draw the spray of the waters. "You have a difficult subject," said I. "All subjects are difficult," he replied, "to a man who desires to do well," "But yours, I fear, is impossible," I said. "You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," he replied. I acknowledged the justice of his rebuke, regretted that I could not remain till the completion of his work should enable me to revoke my words, and passed on. Then I began to reflect, whether I did not intend to try a task as difficult, in describing the falls. I will not say that it is as difficult to describe aright that rush of waters, as it is to paint it well. But I doubt whether it is not quite as difficult to write a description that shall interest the reader, as it is to paint a picture of them that shall be pleasant to the beholder. That the waters of Lake Erie have come down in their courses from the broad basins of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron; that these waters fall into Lake Ontario by the short and rapid river of Niagara, and that the Falls of Niagara are made by a sudden break in the level of this rapid river, are probably known to all who will read this book. All the waters of these huge, northern, inland seas run over that breach in the rocky bottom of the stream; and thence it comes that the flow is unceasing in its grandeur, and that no one can perceive a difference in the weight, or sound, or violence of the fall, whether it be visited in the drought of autumn, amidst the storms of winter, or after the melting of the upper worlds of ice in the days of the early summer. |