By the 3d of June the ships were reunited in Magdalena Bay. Surrounding this harbour of refuge are high mountains rising precipitously about three thousand feet high, the deep valleys filled with immense beds of snow. The temperature is particularly mild on the western coast of Spitzbergen, and in consequence there is a luxury of Alpine plants, grasses, and lichens, also of animal life, reindeer, and flocks of birds, such as the auk, willock, gulls, cormorants, also walruses and seals. There are numerous glaciers from which huge pieces would occasionally break away. Mr. Beechey describes in a most interesting way the fall of one of these extraordinary masses of ice:— [Sidenote: _BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN_] “The first was occasioned by the discharge of a musket at about half a mile’s distance from the glacier. Immediately after the report of the gun, a noise resembling thunder was heard in the direction of the iceberg (glacier) and in a few seconds more an immense piece broke away, and fell headlong into the sea. The crew of the launch, supposing themselves beyond the reach of its influence, quietly looked upon the scene, when presently a sea arose and rolled toward the shore with such rapidity, that the crew had not time to take any precautions, and the boat was in consequence washed upon the beach, and completely filled by the succeeding wave. As soon as their astonishment had subsided, they examined the boat, and found her so badly stove that it became necessary to repair her in order to return to the ship. They had also the curiosity to measure the distance the boat had been carried by the wave, and found it to be ninety-six feet.” Describing a second avalanche he writes:— “This occurred on a remarkably fine day, when the quietness of the bay was first interrupted by the noise of the falling body. Lieutenant Franklin and myself had approached one of these stupendous walls of ice, and were endeavoring to search into the innermost recess of a deep cavern that was near the foot of the glacier, when we heard a report as if of a cannon, and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, we perceived an immense piece of the front of the berg sliding down from the height of two hundred feet at least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied by a loud, grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water which being previously lodged in the fissures now made its escape in numberless small cataracts over the front of the glacier.” So great was the disturbance of the waters by this great falling mass that the _Dorothea_ was seen to be careening at a distance of four miles. After it became somewhat settled, they approached it and found it to be nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference. “Knowing its specific gravity and making fair allowance for its inequalities, its weight was computed at 421,660 tons.”