"What has been said by Goldsmith, and repeated by others, respecting the destructive influence of the rapids above, to ducks and other water-fowl, is only an effect of the imagination. So far from being the case, the wild duck is often seen to swim down the rapid to the brink of the Falls, and then fly out, and repeat the descent, seeming to take a delight in the exercise. Neither are small land-birds affected on flying over the Falls, in the manner that has been stated. I observed the blue bird and the wren, which had already made their annual visit to the banks of the Niagara, frequently fly within one or two feet of the brink, apparently delighted with the gift of their wings, which enabled them to sport over such frightful precipices, without danger." PART II. WONDERS OF THE SEA. CHAPTER I. PARLEY TELLS ABOUT THE FROZEN OCEAN. Your old friend Peter loves to talk about the sea. Ever since he was a child, he loved everything belonging to the sea, and when he was a young man he went many long voyages, and met with many strange adventures, on the sea. Perhaps he did not find it quite so delightful to be shut up in the narrow compass of a ship, during long voyages, as he dreamt he should in his childhood. But he does not now regret whatever labours or sufferings he may have endured, for the pleasure he finds in telling you of them. But I do not intend here to spin you a yarn (as the sailors say) about myself, but merely to describe to you some of the wonderful things I have seen during my voyages, that you may love and admire them. You have never seen the sea frozen over in the same manner as you have seen ponds and rivers in winter. The waters of the sea, everywhere, contain a large portion of salt, as you know from their taste, and this prevents them from freezing, except where it is very cold. It is only near the poles of the earth that the ocean freezes, and there are large masses of ice, both at the north and south poles, which are never thawed, but stand as stedfast as the everlasting hills of granite. Icebergs are large bodies of ice filling the valleys between the high mountains in northern latitudes. Sometimes they get loosened from the places where they were formed, by parts of them thawing, in seasons which are less cold than usual, and then rush down towards the sea, where they float about in all manner of fantastic and majestic forms. [Illustration: _Icebergs._] These icebergs are the creation of ages, and annually increase by the falling of snows, and of rain, which instantly freezes, and more than repairs the loss occasioned by the heat of the sun. I must tell you a little about the way in which cold converts water into ice.