176 THE WORLD OF ICR.

up a plug of tobacco. On further examination being
nade, it was found that this bear had dined on raising,
tobacco, pork, and adhesive plaster! Such an extraor-
dinary mixture of articles, of course, led the party to
conclude that either she had helped herself to the stores
of the Dolphin placed on Store Island, or that she had
fallen in with those of some other vessel, This sub-
ject afforded food for thought and conversation during
the next hour or two, as they drove towards the ship
along the ice-belt of the shore,

The ice-belt referred to is a zone of ice which ex-
tends along the shore from the unknown regions of
the North. To the south it breaks up in summer and
disappears altogether, but in the latitude which our
travellers had now reached, it was a permanent feature
of the scenery all the year round, following the curva-
tures and indentations of bays and rivers, and inereas-
ing in winter or diminishing in summer, but never
melting entirely away. The surface of this ice-belt
was covered with immense masses of rock many tons
in weight, which had fallen from the cliffs above.
Pointing to one of these as they drove along, West
remarked to Fred,—

“There is a mystery explained, sir. I have often
wondered how huge, solitary stones, that no machinery
of man’s making could lift, have come to be placed on
sandy shores where there were no other rocks of any
kind within many miles of them. The ice must have
done it, I see,”

“True, West. The jee, if it could speak, would ex-