The icebergs are alike the grandest and the most beautiful features of the Arctic seas. Only one-seventh of their bulk appears above water, yet they may be hundreds of yards in circumference, and their peaks reach a height of 300 ft. A grander sight can scarcely be conceived than new-born icebergs drifting out from the fjord of their birthplace. When the icebergs drift well out into the open sea the weathering and consequent reduction in size begins. They eventually lose their equilibrium and capsize. The part that has been long under water becomes the upper part, and it is now that the bergs assume their most fantastic shapes. Very often a large piece breaks off from the parent berg, and falls into the sea, churning it up into creamy waves. This is called _calving_. The colour of an iceberg is opaque white. Scattered through the mass, and sometimes visible on the surface, are strata of deep blue ice, varying in width from one to several feet. They have an exquisitely lovely effect, contrasting with the deep white of the rest of the berg. These blue stripes may be formed by a filling up of the fissures in the inland ice with water. Such refrigeration of the water in the fissures may be an important agent in setting these great mountains of ice in motion. Sometimes there is a passage right through an iceberg. But it is when a line of icebergs is refracted on the horizon that the polar scenery is converted into a veritable fairy land. Some are raised up into lofty pillars. Again a whole chain of them will assume the appearance of a long bridge or aqueduct, and as quickly change into a succession of beautiful palaces and temples of dazzling whiteness, metamorphosed by the fantastic wand of Nature. When the ice breaks up in summer, the current takes many of the icebergs into the Atlantic. [Illustration: Effects of Pressure on Antarctic Ice] “Like a scarlet fleece the snowfield spreads And the icy fount runs free, And the bergs begin to bow their heads And plunge and sail in the sea.” _Antarctic Ice._ The difference between the two polar areas--the Arctic an ocean surrounded by continental lands, the Antarctic a continental land surrounded by oceans--causes the differences in the character of the ice with which the sea is laden.