in order that they may not cool during her
absence, and, moreover, glues the down into
a case with a secretion supplied to her by
Nature for that purpose. The deserted eggs
are safe, for that secretion has an odour very
disagreeable to the intruder's nose.

We still sail northward, among sheets of
ice, whose boundaries are not beyond our
vision from the mast-head—these are " floes;"
between them we find easy way, it is fair
"sailing ice." In the clear sky to the north
a streak of lucid white light is the reflection
from an icy surface; that is " ice-blink," in the
language of these seas. The glare from snow
is yellow, while open water gives a dark
reflection.

Northward still; but now we are in fog the
ice is troublesome; a gale is rising. Now, if
our ship had timbers they would crack, and
if she had a bell it would be tolling; if
we were shouting to each other we should
not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild
force its breakers dash against a heaped-up
wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains
and battles fiercely with the water. This is
"the pack," the edge of a great ice-field
broken by the swell. It is a perilous and an
exciting thing to push through pack ice in a
gale.

Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that
is " an ice-field." Masses are forced up like
colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors
call them " hummocks; " here and there the
broken ice displays large "holes of water."
Shall we go on ? Upon this field, in 1827,
Parry adventured with his men, to reach the
North Pole, if that should be possible. With
sledges and portable boats they laboured
on, through snow; and over hummocks,
launching their boats over the larger holes of
water. With stout hearts, undaunted by toil
or danger, they went boldly on, though by
degrees it became clear to the leaders of the
expedition, that they were almost like mice
upon a tread-mill cage, making a great
expenditure of leg for little gain. The ice was
floating to the south with them, as they were
walking to the north; still they went on.
Sleeping by day to avoid the glare, and to get
greater warmth during the time of rest, and
travelling by night,—watch-makers' days and
nights, for it was all one polar day,—the men
soon were unable to distinguish noon from
midnight. The great event of one day on
this dreary waste, was the discovery of two
flies upon an ice hummock; these, says
Parry, became at once a topic of ridiculous
importance. Presently, after twenty- three miles
walking, they only had gone one mile forward,
the ice having industriously floated twenty-
two miles in the opposite direction; and then,
after walking forward eleven miles, they found
themselves to be three miles behind the place
from which they started. The party accordingly
returned, not having reached the Pole,
not having reached the eighty-third parallel,
for the attainment of which, there was a
reward of a thousand pounds held out by government.
They reached the parallel of eighty-
two degrees, forty-five minutes, which was,
and still is, the most northerly point trodden
by the foot of man. From that point they
returned. In those high latitudes they met
with a phenomenon, common in alpine regions,
as well as at the Pole, red snow. The red
colour being caused by the abundance of a
minute plant, of low development, the last
dweller on the borders of the vegetable
kingdom. More interesting to the sailors
was a fat she bear which they killed and
devoured with a zeal to be repented of; for on
reaching navigable sea, and pushing in their
boats to Table Island, where some stones were
left, they found that the bears had eaten all
their bread, whereon the men agreed that
"Bruin was now square with them." An
Islet next to Table Island—they are both
mere rocks—is the most northern land
discovered. Therefore, Parry applied to it the
name of lieutenant—now Sir James—Ross.
This compliment Sir James Ross has
acknowledged in the most emphatic manner,
by discovering on his part, at the other
pole, the most southern land yet seen, and
giving to it the name of Parry: " Parry
Mountains."

It very probably would not be difficult
under such circumstances as Sir W. Parry
has since recommended, to reach the North
Pole along this route. Then (especially if
it be true, as many believe, that there is a
region of open sea about the Pole itself) we
might find it as easy to reach Behring Straits,
by travelling in a straight line over the North
Pole, as by threading the straits and bays
north of America.

We turn our course until we have in sight
a portion of the ice-barred eastern coast of
Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about
this spot in the seventy-fifth parallel is the
most northern part of that coast known to
us. Colonel—then Captain—Sabine in the
"Griper," was landed there to make
magnetic, and other observations; for the same
purpose he had previously visited Sierra
Leone. That is where we differ from our
forefathers. They commissioned hardy seamen
to encounter peril for the search of gold
ore, or for a near road to Cathay; but our
peril is encountered for the gain of knowledge,
for the highest kind of service that can now
be rendered to the human race.

Before we leave the northern sea, we must
not omit to mention the voyage by
Spitzbergen northward, in 1818, of Captain Buchan
in the "Dorothea," accompanied by
Lieutenant Franklin, in the " Trent." It was Sir
John Franklin's first voyage to the Arctic
regions. This trip forms the subject of a
delightful book by Captain Beechey.

On our way to the south point of Greenland
we pass near Cape North, a point of
Iceland. Iceland, we know, is the centre of a
volcanic region, whereof Norway and Greenland