The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone.  There was also a good deal of green-stone and gneiss, and some of the spires of these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking and picturesque objects.

But the great sight of the day’s excursion was that which unexpectedly greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been walking for several hours.  On passing this point they stopped with an exclamation of amazement.  Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic Regions alone can produce.

In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up abruptly and stretched away northward, laden with floes, and fields, and hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the appearance of the sky indicated open water.  Ponds of various sizes and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes spangled the white surface of the floes; and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild-fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine.  Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water’s edge.  On the right there was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe.  They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.

Just at the feet of our young discoverers—­for such we may truly call them—­a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion of which was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was covered with pink snow!  One can imagine with what feelings the two youths gazed on this beautiful sight.  It seemed as if that valley, instead of forming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, were one of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on the bosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues.  A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurred here and there in patches; and beyond it there appeared another gorge in the cliffs, within which rose a tall column of rock, so straight and cylindrical that it seemed to be a production of art.  The whole of the back country was one great rolling distance of glacier, and, wherever a crevice or gorge in the riven cliffs afforded an opportunity, this ocean of land-ice sent down spurs into the sea, the extremities of which were constantly shedding off huge bergs into the water.

“What a scene!” exclaimed Tom Singleton, when he found words to express his admiration.  “I did not think that our world contained so grand a sight.  It surpasses my wildest dreams of fairy-land.”

“Fairy-land!” ejaculated Fred, with a slight look of contempt; “do you know since I came to this part of the world, I’ve come to the conclusion that fairy tales are all stuff, and very inferior stuff too!  Why, this reality is a thousand million times grander than anything that was ever invented.  But what surprises me most is the red snow.  What can be the cause of it?”