Page 32 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

READING LESSONS. 31 the lesser, are the meadows of the seals, on which,
at times, those animals olic by hundreds.
3. The approximation of two great elds produces a most singular phenomenon ; they rce smaller pieces out of the water, and add them to their own sur ce, till at length, the whole rms an aggregate of tremendous height. They oat in the sea like so many rugged mountains, and are sometimes ve or six hundred yards thick, the r greater part of which is concealed beneath the water. Those which remain in this ozen climate receive continual growth; oth­ ers are by degrees wafted into southern latitudes, and melt gradually by the heat of the sun, till they waste away and disappear in the boundless element.
4. The collision of the great elds of ice in high latitudes is often attended with a noise that, r a time, takes away the sense of hearing anything else, and that of the smaller, with a grinding of unspeak­ able horror. The water which dashes against the mountainous ice, eezes into an in nite variety of rms, and gives the voyager ideal towns, streets,
churches, steeples, and every shape which imagina­ tion can ame.
5. Besides the elds of ice in high latitudes, there are iceber·gs, as they are called, or large bodies of ice, that ll the valleys between the high mountains in northern latitudes. Among the most remarkable are those of the east coast of Spitzbergen. They are seven in number, at considerable distances om each other ; each lls the valleys r tracts unknown, in a region totally inaccessible in the interior parts. The rst exhibits a ont three hundred feet high, emulating the emerald in its green colour: cataracts
of melted snow precipitate down various parts, and