The Land of Desolation: Being a Personal Narrative of Observation and Adventure in Greenland

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Harper & Brothers, 1872 - 357 pages
Narrative of a voyage to west coast of Greenland on artist William Bradford's steam-yacht Panther, 1869.
 

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Page 123 - Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
Page 15 - Out upon Time ! it will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before ! Out upon Time ! who for ever will leave But enough of the past for the future to grieve...
Page 177 - ... comes finally to rest. Picture this, and you will have an image of power not to be seen by the action of any other forces upon the earth. The disturbance of the water was inconceivably fine. Waves of enormous magnitude were rolled up with great violence against the glacier, covering it with spray ; and billows came tearing down the fiord, their progress marked by the crackling and crumbling ice, which was everywhere in a state of wildest agitation for the space of several miles.
Page 42 - The land which is called Greenland was discovered and settled from Iceland. Eric the Red was the name of the man from Breidafjord, who sailed thither from thence and there took land at the place which is since called Eiriksfjord.
Page 333 - tis the touch of fairy hand That wakes the spring of northern land ! It warms not there by slow degrees, With changeful pulse, the uncertain breeze , But sudden on the wondering sight Bursts forth the beam of hving light, And instant verdure springs around, And magic flowers bedeck the ground.
Page 131 - The snow which falls upon high mountain-eminences has often a temperature far below the freezing point of water. Such snow is dry, and if it always continued so the formation of a glacier from it would be impossible. The first action of the summer's sun is to raise the temperature of the superficial snow to 32°, and afterwards to melt it. The water thus formed percolates through the colder mass underneath, and this I take to be AIR-BUBBLES IN ICE.
Page 323 - Tis heard where England's eastern glory shines, And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines, And still it spreads. See Germany send forth Her sons* to pour it on the farthest north : Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy The rage and rigor of a polar sky, And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose On icy plains and in eternal snows.

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