[Illustration: ARCHED ICEBERG OFF THE GREENLAND COAST.] In Melville Bay, Dr. Kane’s ship anchored to an iceberg, which protected it from the fury of a violent gale. But he had not long enjoyed the tranquil shelter it afforded, when a din of loud crackling sounds was heard above; and small fragments of ice, not larger than a walnut, began to dot the water, like the first big drops of a thunder-shower. Dr. Kane and his crew did not neglect these indications; they had barely time to cast off, however, before the face of the icy cliff fell in ruins, crashing like near artillery. Afterwards he made fast to a larger berg, which he describes as a moving breakwater, and of gigantic proportions; it kept its course steadily towards the north. When he got under weigh, and made for the north-east, through a labyrinth of ice-floes, he was favoured with a gorgeous spectacle, which hardly any excitement of peril could have induced him to overlook. The midnight sun came out over the northern crest of the huge berg, kindling variously-coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the ice around one sublime transparency of illuminated gem-work, blazing carbuncles, and rubies and molten gold. [Illustration: AMONG THE BERGS--A NARROW ESCAPE.] Dr. Hayes describes an immense berg which resembled in its general aspect the Westminster Palace of Sir Charles Barry’s creation. It went to ruin before his eyes. First one tall tower tumbled headlong into the water, starting from its surface an innumerable swarm of gulls; then another followed; and at length, after five hours of terrible disruption and crashing, not a fragment that rose fifty feet above the water remained of this architectural colossus of ice. These floating isles of ice are carried southward fully two thousand miles from their parent glaciers to melt in the Atlantic, where they communicate a perceptible coldness to the water for thirty or forty miles around, while their influence on the atmospheric temperature may be recognized at a greater distance. Their number is extraordinary. As many as seven hundred bergs, each loftier than the dome of St. Paul’s, some than the cross of St. Peter’s, have been seen at once in the Polar basin; as if the Frost King had despatched an armada to oppose the rash enterprise of man in penetrating within his dominions. The waves break against them as against an iron-bound coast, and often the spray is flung over their very summits, like the spray of the rolling waters of the Channel over the crest of the Eddystone Lighthouse. The ice crumbles from their face, and tumbles down into the sea with a roar like that of artillery; and as they waste away, through the combined action of air and water, they occasionally lose their equilibrium and topple over, producing a swell and a violent commotion which break up the neighbouring ice-fields: the tumult spreads far and wide, and thunder seems to peal around.