"PERPETUAL MOTION."

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CHAPTER IV.

Crossing Davis's Straits.—Sea-sickness again.—"Perpetual Motion."—Changing Appearance and Movements of Icebergs.—Beautiful Sunsets and Morning Skies. —Refraction.—Nature on a Spree.—Distorted Moon.—Mountains "hanging on a Thread."—God's living Arches.— Merrie Dancers" in the Sky.—Approach to Land.—Fogs.—Another Gale.—Desperate Party of runaway Seamen.—Horrible Tale of Starvation and Cannibalism.—Anchor in Kowtukjua Harbor.

The first day or two after our departure, I had a repetition of my old complaint, sea-sickness. Here the dogs managed better than I. They could walk the deck; I was unable. Perhaps having four props to my two considerably helped them. But the first night out we had a terrible shaking. Davis's Straits was more like the broad ocean, and certainly as boisterous. If this Strait and Baffin's Bay were, as I suggest, called "Davis and Baffin's Sea," then could its billows roll high as the heavens, deep as the lowest depths, without our once thinking of their assuming to be what they are not.

At about midnight I had bid farewell to Greenland, and to my supper! Talk of "perpetual motion !" Why has the world been so long in seeking out so simple a problem? Ask me—I used to say—ask poor sea-sick me if I believe in perpetual motion! A ship at sea is perpetually jumping up and down, which motion would run a saw-mill—is perpetually rolling, and this would serve to turn a grindstone—and is perpetually creaking, seesawing, pitching forward, and swinging backward.

During the night "things in general" got capsized. I would not like to swear that the George Henry turned a "summerset," but, on my honor, I can say that when I retired to my berth, an India-rubber cup lashed firmly on my writing-table, and holding a beautiful Greenland bouquet in water, was the next morning emptied of its contents, and every flower and drop of water scattered far and near, though the cup remained in its position! Three half reams of paper, that had been placed securely over my bunk, and had there rested quietly all the previous part of the voyage from New London, were found scattered over an area of say seventy-five feet. One heterogeneous mass presented itself to all

eyes in the morning. Medicine-chest and contents—guns and ammunition—my arctic library and the library of the George Henry—geological and ornithological, cetaceous and floral specimens —sailors' chests—magnetic and astronomical instruments—pens, ink, and paper, charts and maps, etc., besides two human beings —the captain and myself—wrapped in deep slumber by their side. But soon out of all this chaotic mass we produced harmony again. Things got into their places; and I, by degrees, mastered my sickness, and was the man once more.

On July 27th we had a heavy snow-storm, and soon afterward the land on the west side of Davis's Straits was seen, the mountains covered with snow; but, owing to frequent fogs (sometimes it seemed to rain fog) and unsettled weather, we could not near the George Henry's destination, which was now changed to a place more south of Northumberland Inlet. We came across but little ice, except bergs, and frequently expressed much surprise at it. The icebergs, however, were numerous, and many of them deeply interesting—one especially so, from its vast height and odd shape. I say "odd," though that applies in all bergs, for no two are alike, nor does any one seem long to retain its same appearance and position. The following is a sketch of one I called the Belted Ice

berg; but ice movements are as mysterious almost as the magnetic pole. The captain told me that he had known two vessels to be beset near each other in the ice, and in a few days, though the same ice was around each vessel, yet they would be many miles apart! Bergs have been known to approach and recede from each other in as beautiful and stately a manner as partners in the old-fashioned, courtly dances of years gone by.

Of the various bergs I particularly noticed, a few descriptive words may here be said. The first view of one that attracted my attention looked as if an old castle was before me. The ruins of a lofty dome about to fall, and a portion of an arched roof already tumbling down, were conspicuous. Then, in a short time, this changed to a picture of an elephant with two large circular towers on his back, and Corinthian spires springing out boldly from the broken mountains of alabaster on which he had placed his feet. The third view, when at a greater distance, made it like a light-house on the top of piled-up rocks, white as the driven snow. It took no great stretch of fancy to finish the similitude when the sun to-day, for nearly the first time during a week, burst forth in all its splendor, bathing with its flood of golden fire this towering iceberg light-house!

Another berg I could not help calling the Gothic iceberg.

The side facing me had a row of complete arches of the true Gothic order, and running its whole length were mouldings, smooth projections of solid ice, rivaling in the beauty of all their parts any thing I ever saw. The architecture, frieze, and cornice

of each column supporting the arches above were as chaste and accurately represented as the most imaginative genius could conceive. Here and there I saw matchless perfection displayed in the curvature of lines about some of its ornamental parts. Springing out from a rude recess, away up in its vast height, I saw a delicate scroll, which was quite in keeping with Hogarth's "Line of Beauty."

As I was gazing upon one of the many bergs we passed, it overturned, and burst into a thousand fragments!

Relative to the formation of these icebergs, Sterry—upon whose authority alone I mention it, and who is entitled to his own theory upon the subject—told me that, at a place between two mountains in Northumberland Sound, he once counted something like a hundred strata of ice that had been deposited, one layer each year. They were of various thicknesses, each course marked by a deposit of sediment like dirt. He did not complete counting the number of layers, as the height would not admit of his doing so.

On our way across Davis's Strait, not far from Cape Mercy, we passed the spot where, in 1856, the British discovery-ship Resolute had been found by the very vessel I was now on, the George Henry.

I have just been describing the beauty of icebergs as seen on our way across; let me now attempt to picture some of those gorgeous sunsets and phenomena of Nature we witnessed. I extract from my diary at the time:

"July 28th. This evening the whole horizon has presented a most beautiful sight. A zone of rich mellow purple, with matchless tints darting upward to the height of some thirty degrees, met the eye. Then all at once, as the sun disappeared, the purple was replaced by a deep blue. As to the 'tints' of which I write, I am at a loss to describe them. Take a thousand rainbows—stretch them around the horizon—intermix them—entwine them—spin and twist them together, and you have the appearance of those tints crowning that zone, first of purple, then of blue.

"July 31st. Strange sights to-night. Looking through my marine glass to the northeast, when the sun was about three degrees above the horizon, I was astonished at the view before me. Mountains, islands, icebergs, and the sea were in one vast confusion. From the sun northerly to the southeast, wherever I turned my glass, confusion worse than things confounded met my

NATURE ON A SPREE.

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sight. A little reflection, however, brought me to a realization of the fact. The extraordinary appearance of every thing at and beyond the horizon was from 'refraction,' so called.

"We speak of this and that 'looming up' at home, but little did I think what it signified until this night. Mountains far distant —mountains whose true position was considerably below the horizon—were now considerably above it, and icebergs dangling from their tops! This refraction? It was Nature turned inside out! Nature turned topsy-turvy!! Nature on a Spree!!! Yes, Nature on a spree!

"As I went forward I was met by many of the crew (those now on their first voyage to these regions), who called my attention to some icebergs ahead that looked just like 'Bunker's Hill Monument,' only much higher. A few moments before, I had noticed these bergs as mere pigmies. Now the pigmies had become giants! 'Nature on a spree' had given to mere snowballs on the horizon all the beauty and symmetry of 'Bunker's Hill Monument,' running high up, in alabaster columns, to prop the azure sky!

"Soon the moon came rolling up; and what a phase or face it showed, with its wofully distorted countenance! I took my Nautical Almanac for the year (1860), and there found, "August 1st," the sign for Full Moon! The large round circle stared me in the face. There could be no mistake. A moon 'as big and round as a cart-wheel'—as we boys used to say—should be the aspect of fair Luna in the heavens this night. But here was the rising moon 'up to time,' yet where was the full moon? The moon as it ought to be was a moon somewhere else, not here; for, as it ascended above the horizon, its lower limb was like a crushed hat, then as a drunkard's face—fiery-red, and swollen out to its utmost