42 THE WORLD OF ICE.

Those who have never stood at the mast-head of a
ship at sea in a dead calm cannot comprehend the
feeling of intense solitude that fills the mind in such
a position. There is nothing analogous to it on land.
To stand on the summit of a tower and look down
on the busy multitude below is not the same, for
there the sounds are quite different in tone, and sions
of life are visible all over the distant country, while
cries from afar reach the car, as well as those from
below. But from the mast-head you hear only the

 

few subdued sounds under your fect—all beyond is
silence ; you behold only the small, oval-shaped plat-

form that is your world

 

beyond lies the calm deso-
late ocean. On deck you cannot realize this feeling,
for there sails and yards tower above you, and masts,
and boats, and cordage intercept your view; but from
above you take im the intense minuteness of your
home at a single glance-—you stand aside, as it were,
and in some measure comprehend the insignificance
of the thing to which you have committed your life.
The scene witnessed by our friends at the mast-
head of the Dolphin on this occasion was surpassingly
beautiful. far as the eye could stretch the sea was
covered with islands and fields of ice of every con-
ceivable shape. Some rose in little peaks and pin-
nacles, some floated in the form of arches and domes,
some were broken and rugged like the ruins of old
border strongholds, while others were flat and level
like fields of white marble; and so calm was it, that
the ocean in which they floated seemed like a ground-