[Footnote 89: Sometimes, however, icebergs are to be met with in the most northerly part of the Kara Sea and on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, whither they may drive down from Franz Josef Land or from other yet unknown Polar lands lying farther north. ] [Footnote 90: In most of the literary narratives of Polar journeys colossal icebergs play a very prominent part in the author's delineations both with the pencil and the pen. The actual fact, however, is that icebergs occur in far greater numbers in the seas which are yearly accessible than in those in which the advance of the Polar travellers' vessel is hindered by impenetrable masses of ice. If we may borrow a term from the geography of plants to indicate the distribution of icebergs, they may be said to be more _boreal_ than _polar_ forms of ice. All the fishers on the coast of Newfoundland, and most of the captains on the steamers between New York and Liverpool, have some time or other seen true icebergs, but to most north-east voyagers this formation is unknown, though the name iceberg is often in their narratives given to glacier ice-blocks of somewhat considerable dimensions. This, however, takes place on the same ground and with the same justification as that on which the dwellers on the Petchora consider Bolschoj-Kamen a very high mountain. But although no true icebergs are ever formed at the glaciers so common on Spitzbergen and also on North Novaya Zemlya, it however often happens that large blocks of ice fall down from them and give rise to a swell, which may be very dangerous to vessels in their neighbourhood. Thus a wave caused by the falling of a piece of ice from a glacier on the 23rd (13th) of June, 1619, broke the masts of a vessel anchored at Bell Sound on Spitzbergen, threw a cannon overboard, killed three men, and wounded many more (Purchas, iii., p. 734). Several similar adventures, if on a smaller scale, I could relate from my own experience and that of the walrus-hunters. Care is taken on this account to avoid anchoring too near the perpendicular faces of glaciers. ] [Footnote 91: It may, however, be doubted whether the _whole_ of the Kara Sea is completely frozen over in winter. ] [Footnote 92: Already in 1771 one of Pallas' companions, the student Sujeff, found large algae in the Kara Sea (Pallas, _Reise_. St. Petersburg, 1771--1776, ii. p. 34). ] [Footnote 93: Dwellings intended both for winter and summer habitation. ]