Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/126

76 resembling salt-water mud which has been exposed several days to the rays of a tropical sun, (as in tropical salt marshes,) or an immense collection of huts.

For some time we were lost in conjecture, probably from the dark ash colour. But our attention being drawn to nearer objects, and the sun lending his aid, we found the whole slope, from ridge to base, similarly composed; and as the rays played on those near the beach, the brilliant illumination distinctly showed them to be ice. We were divided between admiration and astonishment. What cause would produce those special forms? If one could fancy himself perched on an eminence, about five hundred feet above a city of snow-white pyramidal houses, with smoke-coloured flat roofs covering many square miles of surface, and rising ridge above ridge in steps, he might form some faint idea of this beautiful freak of nature.

APPEARANCE OF ICE.