Among the Icebergs.

here are two classes of icebergs. One consists of consolidated accumulations of ice, which, in frozen regions, fill the valleys between high mountains. The most remarkable icebergs are those on the eastern coast of Spitzbergen, which are seven in number, but at considerable distances one from the other, each filling a valley, and extending to tracts hitherto inaccessible. One of these exhibits a front of three hundred feet in height, and rivals the emerald in colour and brilliancy.

The other class of icebergs to which the term is applied is those irregular masses of ice which, being separated from the main body, float about in the ocean, exhibiting to the eye the representation of churches, houses, and other fantastical appearances. Captain Sir F. Leopold McClintock, in his "Fate of Sir John Franklin," thus writes :—"The icebergs, the chief cause of our unfortunate detention, and which for more than three weeks were in advance of us to the westward, are now, in the short space of two days, nearly out of sight to the eastward." Again he writes :—"Thermometer has fallen to 17 deg. at noon. "We have drifted eighteen miles to the west in the last week, therefore our neighbours, the icebergs, are not always aground, but even when afloat, drift more slowly than the light ice." We can well imagine it is not agreeable to be in such a position as Sir John Franklin was, nor yet as that of Captain Sir F. L. McClintock. They were verily "Among the Icebergs," perilling their lives, attempting to carry out a great discovery for the world they lived in. We will not dwell upon this, but turn our attention to the beautiful icebergs which the jocund traveller delights to witness—not in the cold regions of Spitzbergen and the Arctic, but in the tourists' fond land of Switzerland. These are the creation of ages, receiving additional height by the falling of snows and of rain, which often instantly freezes, and more than repairs the loss occasioned by the influence of the sun. At times, immense fragments break off, and descend the precipitous sides with an alarming velocity.

Frost sports wonderfully with icebergs, and gives them majestic and singular forms. Masses have been seen assuming what an Arabian tale would scarcely dare to relate.

Grindelwald owes its celebrity to the beauty of the passes of the Scheideck, and to its glaciers which, as they descend into the bottom of the valley below the level of the village, are easily accessible. From the sides of the Mettenberg stream out the two glaciers of Grindelwald. They are branches of that field or ocean of ice which occupies the table-land and high valleys of the Bernese Alps, and may be likened to feelers or claws pushed downwards into the habitable world by the grim frost-king above. As a feature of the landscape, their chief beauty arises from contrast, the white ice being fringed by forest and pasture. The lower glacier, sometimes called the smaller, although four times as large as the upper one, forces its way out between the Eiger and Mettenberg, and descends to a point only 3200 ft. above the level of the sea. A path runs along the cliff beneath the precipices of Mettenberg, commanding a view of the minarets of the ice-fall, and affording means, by way of ladder, of paying a visit to the Eismeer (which means ice-sea) or level part of the glacier, which forms one of the pleasantest excursions on the Alps. This excursion is not suited to timid persons, as the path skirts a precipice, and the recent shrinking of the ice renders it necessary to descend by means of a ladder of a hundred steps or more. Ladies, however, do this excursion, for whom every facility is provided.