A TEMPESTS THE POLAR REGIONS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1781, 6 September 1884, Page 3

A TEMPESTS THE POLAR REGIONS.

It is impossible to form an idea of a tempest in the Polar Seas, Tho icohergs are like floating rocks whirled along a rapid current. The huge crystal mountains dash against each other, backward and forward,. bursting with a roar like thunder, and returning to the charge until, losing their equilibrium, they tumble over in % cloud of spray, unheaving 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 up for an instant puffing to the surface, When the midnight sun grazes the surface, the floating mountains and rocks seem immersed in a wavo of .'beautiful purple light. The cold is by nomeanasoinsupportableasisaipposed. We passed from a heated cabin atSOdeg.nbove zero to 47deg. below zero in the open air without inconvenience, A much higher degree becomes insufferable if there is wind. At lodeg. below zero a steam, as if from a boiling kettle, rises from the water. At once frozen by tho wind it falls in a fine powder. This phenomenon is ' called Bea smoke. At 40deg. the snow and human bodies also smoke, which smoke changes at once into millions of tiny particles, like needles of ice, which fill ■ the air and make alight continuous noise, like therustle of a stiff silk, At this temperature the trunks of trees burst with a loud report, the rocks break up, and the earth opens and vomits smoking water. Knives break in cutting butter. Cigars go out by contact with, the ice en the beard, To talk is fatiguing. At nigln the eyelids are covered wilb a crust of ice, which nmst be carefully removed before owcan open them,