age. The word of command was constantly echoed by these stupendous blocks, which seemed to send our voices from one to the other. When we cast our eyes towards our consort, which followed at a short distance, it appeared so small, and its masts so brittle, that we could not help feeling alarmed. For a full hour we could see nothing around us but walls of ice. At last we found ourselves in a vast basin, formed, on one side, by the chain of floating islands through which we had passed, and on the other by a high land, probably 1600 feet in altitude, with a rugged summit of ice covering it as it were with a cloak, blanched by a brilliant sun.

"Numerous fragments of primitive rocks, evidently detached from this elevation, were the only proofs we had of the existence of the new continent. A year later our English friends, more fortunate than ourselves, discovered, in surveying the circumference of one of the gulfs, which they penetrated as high as 78° 30′ latitude, that there were numerous volcanoes. One of these, Mount Erebus, 12,000 feet high, a gigantic beacon in these sombre regions, where night lasts for six months, threw up continually, to a height of 2200 feet, an immense column of fire and smoke. Eternal snows covered the sides of the mount to the very rim of the crater; but when the smoke evaporated at intervals, we could see the igneous mouth laid bare, and emitting a flame so clear and powerful that the midday sun could not pale its brilliancy.

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NATURE'S ACTIVITY.

"Thus it appears that nature never slumbers in any quarter of her wide domains, but even in the iced cupola of its polar extremities the interior of our planet opens up incessantly new fields of labour and of life for future generations."

The Arctic Latitudes.

THE ISLAND OF JAN MAYEN.

FROM the pleasant pages of Lord Dufferin, who has given such an interesting description of Thingvalla and the Geysers, we borrow all that seems requisite to impart to the reader an interest in the view of the island of Jan Mayen. His lordship, in his schooner, had been keeping company with a French vessel, Le Reine Hortense, enjoying the society of the officers, and sharing their cheerful hospitality. They were now to separate.

"Down went the heavy hawser into the sea, up fluttered the stray sail; then, poising for a moment on the waves, with the startled hesitation of a bird suddenly set free, the little creature spread her wings, thrice dipped her ensign in token of adieu,-receiving in return a hearty cheer from the French crew,-and glided like a phantom into the North, while the Reine Hortense puffed back to Iceland.

"Ten minutes more, and we were the only denizens of that misty sea. Our situation was not altogether without causing me a little anxiety. We had not seen the sun for two days; it was very thick, with a heavy sea, and, dodging about as we had been among the ice, at the heels of the steamer, our dead reckoning was not very much to be depended upon. The best plan, I thought, would be to stretch away at once clear of the ice, then run up into the latitude of Jan Mayen; and as soon as