We might speak, also, of eight English sailors, left,
by accident, upon Spitzbergen, who lived to return and tell their
winter's tale; but a long journey is before us and we must not linger on
the way. As for our whalers, it need scarcely be related that the
multitude of whales diminished as the slaughtering went on, until it was
no longer possible to keep the coppers full. The whales had to be
searched for by the vessels, and thereafter it was not worth while to
take the blubber to Spitzbergen to be boiled; and the different nations,
having carried home their coppers, left the apparatus of those fishing
stations to decay.

Take heed. There is a noise like thunder, and a mountain snaps in two.
The upper half comes, crashing, grinding, down into the sea, and loosened
streams of water follow it. The sea is displaced before the mighty heap;
it boils and scatters up a cloud of spray; it rushes back, and violently
beats upon the shore. The mountain rises from its bath, sways to and
fro, while water pours along its mighty sides; now it is tolerably quiet,
letting crackers off as air escapes out of its cavities. That is an
iceberg, and in that way are all icebergs formed. Mountains of ice
formed by rain and snow--grand Arctic glaciers, undermined by the sea or
by accumulation over-balanced--topple down upon the slightest provocation
(moved by a shout, perhaps), and where they float, as this black-looking
fellow does, they need deep water. This berg in height is about ninety
feet, and a due balance requires that a mass nine times as large as the
part visible should be submerged. Icebergs are seen about us now which
rise two hundred feet above the water's level.

There are above head plenty of aquatic birds; ashore, or on the ice, are
bears, foxes, reindeer; and in the sea there are innumerable animals. We
shall not see so much life near the North Pole, that is certain. It
would be worth while to go ashore upon an islet there, near Vogel Sang,
to pay a visit to the eider-ducks. Their nests are so abundant that one
cannot avoid treading on them. When the duck is driven by a hungry fox
to leave her eggs, she covers them with down, in order that they may not
cool during her absence, and, moreover, glues the down into a case with a
secretion supplied to her by Nature for that purpose. The deserted eggs
are safe, for that secretion has an odour very disagreeable to the
intruder's nose.

We still sail northward, among