Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/218

166 to us, as a means of taking observations, as well as gratifying to nature by the animation which its presence imparts. As the mist rapidly dispersed the land soon presented its variegated and richly stratified cliff to our view: over the face of which lofty boundary, in extensive recesses from the summit, the three celebrated icebergs were united. These polar glaciers, created by the melting of the snow under the summer sun, being annually increased by the frozen severity of winter, were sublimely grand; they were upwards of 1,200 feet in altitude, and resembled immense cataracts curving to the form of the cliffs, over which they passed; while patches of snow, not unlike foam, gave a pleasing variety to the dark front of rock to which they were united by frozen ties; and ridges of the same attracted the attention by the relief they bestowed upon this sterile boundary. Just as we arrived at the south point, the sun had acquired power to disperse the misty vapour that was mantling the brow of the cliff, and in a short time it withdrew its fleecy curtain, and unfolded to our sight, the magnificent and lofty mountain of Beeringberg, or Bear's Mountain, which from its extraordinary steepness, can only be accessible to these lords of the soil. To say that I was lost in astonishment, on beholding this wonderful promontory, is saying too little, for language cannot express my feelings, on beholding the transition produced in one minute by the vanishing of a dense fog. Part of this colossal feature was exhibited,