THE WORLD OF ICE. 177

plain many things that now seem to us mysterious ;
and yonder goes a big rock on a journey that may
perhaps terminate at a thousand miles to the south of
this.”

The rock referred to was a large mass that became
detached from the cliffs and fell, as he spoke, with a
tremendous crash upon the ice-belt, along which it
rolled for fifty yards. There it would lie all winter,
and in spring the mass of ice to which it was attached
would probably break off and float away with it to
the south, gradually melting until it allowed the rock
to sink to the bottom of the sea, or depositing it, per-
chance, on some distant shore, where such rocks are
not wont to lie—there to remain an object of specu-
lation and wonderment to the unlearned of all future
ages.

Some of the beres close to which they passed on
the journey were very fantastically formed, and many
of them were more than a mile long, with clear, blue,
glassy surfaces, indicating that they had been but
recently thrown off from the great glacier of the
North. Between two of these they drove for some
time, before they found that they were going into a
sort of blind alley.

“Sure the road’s gittin’ narrower,” observed O’Riley,
as he glanced wp at the blue walls, which rose perpen-
dicularly to a height of sixty feet on either hand.
“Have a care, Mectuck, or yell jam us up, ye will.”

“Tis a pity we left the ice-belt,’ remarked Fred,
“for this rough work among the bergs is bad for man

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