"The rocks on shore were crowded with sea-swallows, birds whose habits require open water; and they were already breeding. The gulls were represented by no less than four species. The kittiwakes--reminding Morton of `old times in Baffin's Bay'--were again stealing fish from the water (probably the small whiting), and their grim cousins, the burgomasters, enjoying the dinner thus provided at so little cost to themselves. It was a picture of life all round. "Here, for the first time, Morton noticed the arctic petrel,--a fact which shows the accuracy of his observation, though he had not been aware of its importance. This bird had not been met with since we left the north water of the English whalers, more than two hundred miles south of the position on which he stood. Its food is essentially marine; and it is seldom seen in numbers, except in the highways of open water frequented by the whale and the larger representatives of ocean life. They were in numbers flitting and hovering over the crests of the waves, like their relatives of kinder climates,--the Cape of Good Hope pigeons, Mother Carey's chickens, and the petrels everywhere else. "It must have been an imposing sight, as Morton stood at this termination of his journey, looking out upon the great waste of waters before him. Not a speck of ice could be seen. There, from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty miles, his ears were gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves; and a surf, breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further progress." Strong presumptive evidence, all this, that there is an ocean of open water round the pole, and a milder climate there than exists nearer to the arctic circle. Had the short barrier of ice that intervened between the brig and that mysterious sea been removed, as, perchance, it is sometimes removed by a hot summer, Dr Kane might have been the first to reach the North Pole. This, however, is reserved for some other navigator. The gallant Kane now lies in an early grave but some of his enterprising comrades have returned to those regions, bent on solving this problem; and it is possible that, even while we now write, their adventurous keel may be ploughing the waters of the hitherto untraversed and mysterious polar sea. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA OF THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS--THE AURORA BOREALIS--ICE-BLINK--OPTICAL ILLUSIONS--ANECDOTE OF SCORESBY--HALOES-- CORONAE--MOCK SUNS--REFRACTION--FROSTS. Owing to the intensity of the cold in the arctic regions, there are, as we may readily believe, many singular appearances connected with the ocean and the atmosphere, which are worthy of special notice. Chief, perhaps, among the phenomena of those regions is the _Aurora Borealis_. Ever mindful of the welfare of the creatures whom he has formed, the Almighty has appointed a light to mitigate the darkness of the polar regions when the sun, in its appointed course, withdraws for a season.