and
from each of these fibres, in another plane, proceeded a short delicate
range of spiculae or rays, discoverable only by the help of a
microscope, with which the elegant texture and systematic construction
of the feather were completed. Many of these crystals, possessing a
perfect arrangement of the different parts corresponding with the shaft,
vane, and rachis of a feather, were upwards of an inch in length, and
three-fourths of an inch in breadth. Some consisted of a single flake
or feather, but many of them gave rise to other feathers, which sprang
from the surface of the vane at the usual angle. There seemed to be no
limit to the magnitude of these feathers, so long as the producing cause
continued to operate, until their weight because so great, or the action
of the wind so forcible, that they were broken off and fell in flakes to
the deck of the ship."

It is impossible for the mind to conceive the effect of such a galaxy of
curious, and bright, and eminently beautiful combinations as are
sometimes displayed in the arctic regions. None of the fabulous
conceptions of man, even though profoundly elaborated and brightly
gilded with the coruscations of the most sparkling genius and fancy,
ever produced so gorgeous a spectacle as may be witnessed there every
summer day. Four or five suns in the blue sky, with lines and circles
of light shooting from or circling round them! Ice in all its quaint,
majestic, and shining forms, rendered still more quaint and grand by the
influence of refraction; and, by the same power, ships sailing in the
sky, sometimes, as if Nature's laws were abrogated, with their keels
upwards, and their masts pointing to the sea! Walls of pure ice
hundreds of feet high, many miles in extent, clear as crystal, and
sending back the rays of heaven's luminaries in broad blazing beams;
while the icebergs' pinnacles reflect them in sparkling points! White
luminous fogs, like curtains of gauze, too thin to dim the general
brightness, yet dense enough to invest the whole scene with a silver
robe of mystery, and to refract the light and compel it to shine in
great circles of prismatic colours! And everything--from the nature of
the materials of which the gay scenery is composed--either white or
blue, varying in all gradations from the fairest snow to the deepest
azure, save where the rainbow's delicate hues are allowed to intermingle
enough of pink, yellow, purple, orange, and green to relieve the