It is, however, very desolate; scarcely any vegetation excepting a dark moss, and even this goes but a little way up the mountain side. Scoresby ascended one of the hills near Horn Sound, and describes the view as "most extensive and grand. A fine sheltered bay was seen to the east of us, an arm of the same on the north-east, and the sea, whose glassy surface was unruffled by a breeze, formed an immense expanse on the west; the glaciers, rearing their proud crests almost to the tops of mountains between which they were lodged, and defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in various directions about the sea-coast and in the adjoining bays. Beds of snow and ice filling extensive hollows, and giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which, commencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood, extended in a continual line towards the north, as far as the eye could reach--mountain rising above mountain, until by distance they dwindled into insignificance, the whole contrasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and enlightened by the rays of a blazing sun, and the effect, aided by a feeling of danger, seated as we were on the pinnacle of a rock almost surrounded by tremendous precipices--all united to constitute a picture singularly sublime." One of the glaciers of Spitzbergen is 11 miles in breadth when it reaches the sea-coast, the highest part of the precipitous front adjoining the sea being over 400 feet, and it extends far upwards towards the summit of the mountain. The surface forms an inclined plane of smooth unsullied snow, the beauty and brightness of which render it a conspicuous landmark on that inhospitable shore. From the perpendicular face great masses of ice from time to time break away, Whose blocks of sapphire seem to mortal eye Hewn from caerulean quarries of the sky.[65] Field ice is comparatively flat, though it may be piled up perhaps as much as 50 feet. It is from glaciers that true icebergs, the beauty and brilliance of which Arctic travellers are never tired of describing, take their origin. The attempts to reach the North Pole have cost many valuable lives; Willoughby and Hudson, Behring and Franklin, and many other brave mariners; but yet there are few expeditions more popular than those to "the Arctic," and we cannot but hope that it is still reserved for the British Navy after so many gallant attempts at length to reach the North Pole. FOOTNOTES: [56] Shelley. [57] Campbell. [58] Holmes. [59] Bell. [60] Hemans. [61] Gunther, _History of Fishes_. [62] Darwin, _Coral Reefs_. [63] Abercromby, _Seas and Skies in many Latitudes_. [64] _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago._ [65] Montgomery. CHAPTER X THE STARRY HEAVENS