At length these ice-islands became as familiar to those on board as the clouds and the sea. Whenever a strong reflection of white was seen on the skirts of the sky, near the horizon, then ice was sure to be encountered; notwithstanding which, that substance itself was not entirely white, but often tinged, especially near the surface of the sea, with a most beautiful sapphirine, or rather berylline blue, evidently reflected from the water. This blue color sometimes appeared twenty or thirty feet above the surface, and was probably produced by particles of sea-water which had been dashed against the mass in tempestuous weather, and had penetrated into its interstices. In the evening, the sun setting just behind one of these masses, tinged its edges with gold, and reflected on the entire mass a beautiful suffusion of purple. In the larger masses, were frequently observed shades or casts of white, lying above each other in strata, sometimes of six inches, and at other times of a foot in hight. This appearance seemed to confirm the opinion entertained relative to the increase and accumulation of such huge masses of ice, by heavy falls of snow at different intervals; for snow being of various kinds, small-grained, large-grained, in light feathery locks, &c., the various degrees of its compactness may account for the different colors of the strata. In his third attempt to proceed southward, in January, 1774, Capt. Cook was led, by the mildest sunshine which was, perhaps, ever experienced in the frigid zone, to entertain hopes of penetrating as far toward the south pole as other navigators have done toward the north pole; but on the twenty-sixth of that month, at four in the morning, his officers discovered a solid ice-field of immense extent before them, bearing from east to west. A bed of fragments floated around this field, which was raised several feet above the surface of the water. While in this situation, the southern part of the horizon was illuminated by the rays of light reflected from the ice, to a considerable hight. Ninety-seven ice-islands were distinctly seen within the field, besides those on the outside; many of them very large, and looking like a ridge of mountains, rising one above the other until they were lost in the clouds. The most elevated and most ragged of these ice-islands, were surmounted by peaks, and were from two to three hundred feet in hight, with perpendicular cliffs or sides astonishing to behold. The largest of them terminated in a peak not unlike the cupola of St. Paul’s.