eons and
temples. In a word, even the Alps, with all their peculiar grandeur, and
certainly on a scale so vastly more enlarged, possess no one aspect that
is so remarkable for its resemblance to the labours of man, composed of a
material of the most beautiful transparency, and considered as the results
of human ingenuity, on a scale so gigantic. The glaciers have often been
likened, and not unjustly, to a frozen sea; but here were congealed
mountains seemingly hewed into all the forms of art, not by the chisel it
is true, but by the action of the unerring laws which produced them.

Perhaps Roswell Gardiner was the only individual in those two vessels that
night who was fully alive to all the extraordinary magnificence of its
unusual pictures. Stephen may, in some degree, have been an exception to
the rule; though he saw the hand of God in nearly all things. "It's
wonderful to look at, Captain Gar'ner, isn't it?" said this worthy seaman,
about the time the light of the moon began to tell on the view;
"wonderful, truly, did we not know who made it all!" These few and simple
words had a cheering influence on Roswell, and served to increase his
confidence in eventual success. God did produce all things, either
directly or indirectly; this even his sceptical notions could allow; and
that which came from divine wisdom must be intended for good. He would
take courage, and for once in his life trust to Providence. The most
resolute man by nature feels his courage augmented by such a resolution.

The gales of the antarctic sea are said to be short, though violent. They
seldom last six-and-thirty hours, and for about a third of that time they
blow with their greatest violence. As a matter of course, the danger amid
the ice is much increased by a tempest; though a good working breeze, or
small gale of wind, perhaps, adds to a vessel's security, by rendering it
easier to handle her, and to avoid floes and bergs. If the ice is
sufficient to make a lee, smooth water is sometimes a consequence; though
it oftener happens that the turbulence produced in clear water is
partially communicated over a vast surface, causing the fields and
mountains to grind against each other under the resistless power of the
waves. On the present occasion, however, the schooners were still in open
water, where the wind had a long and unobstructed rake, and a sea had got
up that caused both of the little craft to bury nearly to their gunwales.
What rendered