A TEMPEST IN THE POLAR REGIONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4082, 21 August 1884, Page 4

A TEMPEST IN THE POLAR REGIONS.

It is impossible to form an idea of a tempest in the Polar Seas. The icebergs are like floating rocks whirled along a rapid current. Tho huge crystal mountains dash against each other, backward and forward, bursting ivith a roar like thunder, and returning to the charge until, losing their equilibrium, they tumble over in a cloud of spray, upheaving the icefields, which fall afterwards like the crack of a whip lash on the boiling sea. The sea-gulls fly away screaming, and often and often a black, shining whale comes for an instant puffing to the surface. When tho midnight sun grazes the surface, the floating mountains and the rocks seemed immersed in a wave of beautiful purple light. The cold is byno means so insupportable as is supposed. AYe passed from a heated cabin at 30dcg. above zero to 47dcg. below zero in tho open air Avithout inconvenience. A much higher degree becomes, however, insufferable if there is wind. At lodeg. below zero a stream, as if from a boiling kettle, rises from tho water. At once frozen by_ the wind, it falls in a fine powder. This phenomenon is called sea smoke. At 40deg. the snow and human bodies also smoke, ivhich smoke changes at once into millions of tiny particle-*, like needles of ice, ivhich fill the air and make a light continuous noise, like tho rustle of a stiff silk. At this temperature tho trunk's of trees burst with a loud report, tho rocks break up, aud the earth opens and vomits smoking water. Kuivcs break in cutting butter. Cigars go out by contact with the ice on the beard. To talk is fatiguing At night the eyelids are covered with a crust of ice, which must bo carefully removed before one can open them.