THE FROZEN SHIP.

ONE quiet evening, in the middle of August 1775, Captain Warrens, the master of a Greenland whaler, found himself becalmed among a vast number of icebergs in the Arctic Sea. They were of immense height, and closely wedged together; and a succession of snow-covered peaks appeared behind each other as far as the eye could reach. There being no wind, he could make no progress either one way or other, though he was safe so long as the icebergs stood firm.

About midnight the wind rose to a gale, accompanied by a blinding shower of snow; while a succession of thundering, grinding, and crashing noises, gave fearful proof that the ice was in motion.

After a terrible night, Captain Warrens found, to his great joy, that the icebergs had been separated by the storm; and a canal of open water seemed to wind its way through them as far as the eye could reach.

Two miles beyond this channel, a ship made its appearance about noon. The sun was shining brightly, and a gentle breeze blew from the north. At first, some icebergs between prevented Captain Warrens from seeing anything but her masts; but he was struck by the strange way in which her sails were disposed, and with the dismantled look of her yards and rigging. She seemed to be drifted a little way by the wind, and then to remain motionless.

Captain Warrens' curiosity was so excited that he ordered out one of his boats, and with several seamen he rowed toward her. On approaching, he observed that her hull was miserably weather-beaten, and that not a human being appeared on the snow-covered deck. He hailed her crew, but no answer was

returned.

Before going on board, an open port-hole near the main chains caught his eye; and, on looking in, he saw a man leaning back in a chair, with writing materials before him; but the feebleness of

the light within the vessel made everything very indistinct. The party then went on deck, removed the hatchway, which was closed, and went down into the cabin. They first came to the little room which Captain Warrens had looked into through the port-hole. A shudder seized him as he entered it. The man he had seen sat motionless, cold, and silent. He was found to be a corpse, and a green damp covered his cheeks and forehead and veiled his eye-balls. He had a pen in his hand, and a log-book lay before him. these:

The last words in the unfinished page were

"November 11, 1762.-We have now been enclosed in the ice seventeen days. The fire went out yesterday, and our master has been trying ever since to kindle it again, without success. His wife died this morning. There is no relief."

Captain Warrens and his men hurried from the spot without uttering a word. On entering the principal cabin, the first thing they saw was the dead body of a woman, lying in an attitude of deep interest and attention, as if still watching what was going on. Her face had still the freshness of life, and her stiff limbs alone showed that she was dead. Seated on the floor was the body of a young man, holding a steel in one hand and a flint in the other, as if trying to strike fire upon some tinder which lay beside him. In the fore part of the vessel, several sailors were found dead in their berths; and the body of a boy was found crouched at the foot of the gangway stairs.

Neither provisions nor fuel could be discovered anywhere; but Captain Warrens was prevented, by the foolish fears of his men, from examining the vessel so minutely as he wished to do. He therefore carried away the unfinished log-book, and, returning to his own ship, immediately steered to the southward, deeply impressed by what he had seen.

On returning to England, he was enabled, by the book and other writings he had taken from the lost ship, to trace out her name and history.

For twelve long years, through sunshine and storm, had that ill-fated bark navigated the Polar Seas, and, perhaps, unconsciously

solving the problem that had so long baffled human skill and daring, had even crossed the Pole itself!

Such a scene as this is thus described in Coleridge's poem of "The Ancient Mariner: ".

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold;

And ice mast high came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen;

Nor shapes of men, nor beasts we ken;
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around;

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound.

I closed my lips, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and sea, and the sea and sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel dungeon fitter;
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reck did they :

The look with which they looked on me
Hath never passed away.

ICE, GLACIERS, AND ICEBERGS.

ICE, like snow, is crystallized water; and as snow is a covering to the earth, so ice forms a covering to the water beneath it, and protects it from the influence of the cold.

It is a general law that bodies expand by heat and contract by cold; but water, as it becomes converted into ice, exhibits phenomena which are wholly at variance with this.

As the temperature of water is lowered, it continues to contract until it arrives at a certain point, when all further contraction ceases. That point is 39 degrees of the Fahrenheit thermometer. On lowering the temperature still further, instead of contraction, expansion is produced; and in consequence of this, the colder particles of water become lighter, and rise to the surface, where they are converted into ice, and undergo a still further expansion. On the approach of winter, this phenomenon actually takes place on our lakes, ponds, and rivers; and by this beautiful arrangement of nature an icy covering is provided, which prevents the water from being frozen throughout.

If water continued to grow heavier as its temperature diminished, (as is the case with most liquids,) the colder particles at the surface would sink till the whole body of water was reduced to the freezing point. Again, if ice were not lighter than water, it would sink to the bottom, and by the continuance of this operation, rivers and lakes would soon become a solid mass of ice, which the heat of summer would be insufficient to dissolve. The temperate regions of the earth would thus be rendered uninhabitable.

Among all the phenomena of nature, there is, perhaps, no more striking illustration of the wisdom of the Creator, and of the evidence of design, than in this wonderful exception to a great general law.

Glaciers may be compared to the icicles which hang from the eaves of a snow-covered roof. As these icicles owe their origin to the melting of the snow upon the roof, so also the glaciers are caused by the melting of the snow which perpetually covers the mountain-peaks above.

Glaciers are formed in elevated mountain valleys, by the fall of snow, which is increased in amount by immense quantities precipitated from the adjacent mountain-peaks. The mass is subjected to alternate freezing and thawing, until, in the progress of centuries, the valley becomes filled with a body of ice constituting the glacial formation.

The ice of glaciers differs from pond or river ice, being less transparent and more porous. It is not formed in layers, but is a mixture of ice, snow, and water. The lower part of glaciers

contains the most pure and solid ice.

Recent observations and experiments have demonstrated that glaciers are in reality ice-rivers, moving slowly and almost imperceptibly onward. In Switzerland the average flow is about an inch an hour in the summer season. As, however, the motion varies very much, according to the temperature of the air, in Greenland it must be much slower.

Glaciers, by their enormous onward pressure, break off masses of rock from the sides and bottoms of their valley courses, and carry along everything that is movable; forming large accumulations of earth and stones in front, and along their sides. These accumulations are called moraines.

Icebergs are huge masses of fresh-water ice, broken off by the waves from the glaciers in the polar seas. They are of various dimensions, from a few yards to miles in circumference, rising hundreds of feet out of the water. They have the appearance of glittering chalk-cliffs, towering aloft in fantastic shapes, and presenting a most sublime spectacle.

Great numbers of icebergs are annually drifted by marine currents far into the Atlantic Ocean. As they slowly melt in its waves, they cool the water sensibly for forty or fifty miles around, and lower the temperature of the air to such a degree that their approach is plainly perceived long before they come in sight. They are often encountered in such numbers that the sea is covered with them as far as the eye can reach. In the spring, the Arctic icebergs come within the routes of navigation, and occasion the loss of many vessels every year.