Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/116

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had reached the summit of the cliff I was almost blown over it. The force of the wind was so great that I was obliged to steady myself against a rock while making my observations. Knorr, who accompanied me, lost his cap, and it went sailing out over the sea as if a mere feather. The scene was but a broader panorama of that which I described in this journal yesterday. It was a grand, wild confusion of the elements. The little schooner, far down beneath me, was writhing and reeling with the fitful gusts, and straining at her cables like a chained wild beast. The clouds of drifting snow which whirled through the gorges beneath me, now and then hid her and the icebergs beyond from view; and when the air fell calm again the cloud dropped upon the sea, and the schooner, after a short interval of unrest, lay quietly on the still water, nestling in sunshine under the protecting cliffs.

There are yet some lingering traces of the summer. Some patches of green moss and grass were seen in the valleys, where the snow had drifted away; and I plucked a little nosegay of my old friends the poppies and the curling spider-legged Saxifraga flagelaris. The frost and snow and wind had not robbed them of their loveliness and beauty. The cliffs are of the same sandstone, interstratified with greenstone, which I have before remarked of the coast below.

McCormick has replaced the old foresail which was split down the centre, with the new one, and has patched up the mainsail and jib, both of which were much torn.

An immense amount of ice has drifted past us, but we are too far in-shore for any masses of considerable