ll size at first, and then, by adding to themselves
the snow and rocks in its passage, it falls with increasing swiftness,
destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its
course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages;
the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is
almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be
certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning
quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with
the dreadful roar of thunder, and with dull echoes.

So the amazed spectators see wonderful changes in the appearance of
the country; the mountain becomes a plain under the action of a sudden
thaw; when the rain has filtered into the fissures of the great blocks
and freezes in a single night, it breaks everything by its
irresistible expansion, which is more powerful in forming ice than in
forming vapor: the phenomenon takes place with terrible swiftness.

No catastrophe, fortunately, threatened the sledge and its drivers;
the proper precautions were taken, and every danger avoided. Besides,
this rugged, icy country was not of great extent, and three days
later, July 3d, the travellers were on smoother ground. But their eyes
were surprised by a new phenomenon, which has for a long time claimed
the attention of the scientific men of the two worlds. It was this:
the party followed a line of hills not more than fifty feet high,
which appeared to run on several miles, and their eastern side was
covered with red snow.

The surprise and even the sort of alarm which the sight of this
crimson curtain gave them may be easily imagined. The doctor hastened,
if not to reassure, at least to instruct, his companions; he was
familiar with this red snow and the chemical analysis made of it by
Wollaston, Candolle, Bauer. He told them this red snow was not found
in the arctic regions alone, but in Switzerland in the middle of the
Alps; De Saussure collected a large quantity on the Breven in 1760;
and since then Captains Ross, Sabine, and others had brought some back
from their arctic journeys.

[Illustration]

Altamont asked the doctor about the nature of this extraordinary
substance. He was told that its color came simply from the presence of
organic corpuscles. For a long time it was a question whether these
corpuscles were animal or vegetable; but it was soon ascertained that
they belonged to the fami