ent storm was gone
except a long swell, which caused the brig to roll considerably, but
which did not break the surface of the sea.

Ice was to be seen all round as far as the eye could reach. Ice in
every form and size imaginable. And the wonderful thing about it was
that many of the masses resembled the buildings of a city. There were
houses, and churches, and monuments, and spires, and ruins. There were
also islands and mountains! Some of the pieces were low and flat, no
bigger than a boat; others were tall, with jagged tops; some of the
fields, as they are called, were a mile and more in extent, and there
were a number of bergs, or ice-mountains, higher than the brig's
topmasts. These last were almost white, but they had, in many places, a
greenish-blue colour that was soft and beautiful. The whole scene shone
and sparkled so brilliantly in the morning sun, that one could almost
fancy it was one of the regions of fairyland!

When young Gregory came on the quarter-deck, no one was there except Jim
Croft, a short, thick-set man, with the legs of a dwarf and the
shoulders of a giant. He stood at the helm, and although no steering
was required, as there was no wind, he kept his hands on the spokes of
the wheel, and glanced occasionally at the compass. The first mate, who
had the watch on deck, was up at the masthead, observing the state of
the ice.

"How glorious!" exclaimed the youth, as he swept his sparkling eye round
the horizon. "Ah, Croft! is not this splendid?"

"So it is, sir," said the seaman, turning the large quid of tobacco that
bulged out his left cheek. "It's very beautiful, no doubt, but it's
comin' rather thick for my taste."

"How so?" inquired Gregory. "There seems to me plenty of open water to
enable us to steer clear of these masses. Besides, as we have no wind,
it matters little, I should think, whether we have room to sail or not."

"You've not seed much o' the ice yet, that's plain," said Croft, "else
you'd know that the floes are closin' round us, an' we'll soon be fast
in the pack, if a breeze don't spring up to help us."

As the reader may not, perhaps, understand the terms used by Arctic
voyagers in regard to the ice in its various forms, it may be as well
here to explain the meaning of those most commonly used.

When ice is seen floating in small detached pieces and scattered masses,
it is called "floe" ice, and men speak of getting among the floes. When
these floes clo