his position, carrying his coil with him and fixing it

anew.

"He has hardly fixed it before the pair have again risen, breaking up an area of ten feet diameter, about the very spot he has left. As they sink once more he again changes his place. And so the conflict goes on between address and force, till the victim, half exhausted, receives a second wound, and is played like a trout by the angler's reel.

"When wounded the walrus rises high out of the water, plunges heavily against the ice, and strives to raise himself with his fore flippers upon its surface. As it breaks under his weight, his countenance assumes a still more vindictive expression, his bark changes to a roar, and the foam pours out from his jaws till it froths his beard.

"Some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the walrus, from the fact that this battle which Morton witnessed, not without sharing some of its danger, lasted four hours-during which the animal rushed continually at the Esquimaux as they approached, tearing off great tables of ice with his tusks, and showing no indications of fear whatever. He received upwards of seventy lance wounds, Morton counted over sixty; and even then he remained hooked by his tusks to the ice, unable or unwilling to retire. His female fought in the same manner, but fled on receiving a lance wound.

"The Esquimaux seemed fully aware of the danger of venturing too near; for at the first onset of the walrus they jumped back far enough to be clear of the broken ice. Morton described the last three hours as wearing, on both sides, the aspect of an unbroken and seemingly doubtful combat.

"The method of landing the beast upon the ice, too, showed a great deal of clever contrivance. They made two

pair of incisions in the neck, where the hide is very thick, about six inches apart and parallel to each other, so as to form a couple of bands. A line of cut hide, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, was passed under one of these bands and carried up on the ice to a firm stick well secured in the floe, where it went through a loop, and was then taken back to the animal, made to pass under the second band, and led off to the Esquimaux. This formed a sort of 'double purchase,' the blubber so lubricating the cord as to admit of a free movement. By this contrivance the beast, weighing some seven hundred pounds, was hauled up and butchered at leisure."

ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA IN ARCTIC REGIONS.

No part of the globe presents such variety of singular and beautiful phenomena as the regions of ice around the poles. The sudden and violent changes in temperature caused by the accumulation or dispersion of ice have a good deal to do with the phenomena referred to, but some of the singular appearances-especially those of the Aurora Borealis—have not yet been satisfactorily accounted for. Philosophers say that electricity is the cause of the aurora, but having said this, they have dived their deepest into the subject, for electricity, like fire, is a mere name employed to indicate an agent with the substance of which we are unacquainted.

Whatever the cause, the effect of the aurora is indescribably splendid. Its colour and coruscations are much more brilliant and lovely than they are in our more southern climes, and its light seems, though in a very small degree indeed, to make up for the long absence of the sun.

Another of the curious results of ice-influence on the atmosphere is refraction, which causes objects to appear as

if floating in the air, and sometimes inverted. Thus ships are frequently seen in the sky upside down, as represented in our cut.

Scoresby, in his voyage of 1822, saw the rugged surface of the ice assume the forms of castles, obelisks, and spires, which, here and there, were so linked together as to present the appearance of an extensive city. At other times it resembled a forest of naked trees, and it scarcely required the aid of fancy to discover the forms of lions, bears, and other wild animals among them.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ATLANTIC CABLE.

Yet

It is a trite mode of expressing inexpressible wonder at anything inexpressibly wonderful, to say, "Had we soberly asserted, fifty years ago, that so and so would have happened, we would have been regarded as a hopeless lunatic." we cannot find a more forcible method of realizing the wonderful nature of the Atlantic telegraph than to call to life, in imagination, the last generation, tell it that we have actually held instantaneous communication with America by means of electricity, and watch the expression of unutterable amazement that would overspread that generation's visage, when it heard, understood, and believed the news!

It matters not that, for practical purposes, the Atlantic telegraph has proved, hitherto, a failure. It does not in the least detract from the great, stupendous consummation, that "the cable" is now lying,-like the great sea serpent, dead, drawn out, elongated, attenuated to the size of its original back-bone-rotting at the bottom of the sea. The cable has been laid; gushing words of liquid fire have passed, in a single moment, from land to land, through seas over which all the mariners of ancient days battled with such difficulty; the Atlantic telegraph is a fait accompli, and it needs not the gift of prophecy to tell that many years shall not pass away before we shall be sending messages at so much a word to our friends in the New World as we now do to those in the Old.

LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE.

The idea of uniting England and America by means of an electric telegraph, originated in America, and the attempt to accomplish this strange yet desirable union was made, in the summer of 1857, conjointly by the two countries, under the auspices of The Atlantic Telegraph Company.

Scientific explorations made in the bed of the Atlantic, by Lieutenant Maury, had proved that there is a submarine ledge or bank extending from Cape Clear in Ireland, to Cape Race in Newfoundland, varying from two to two and a half miles in depth. Along this bank it was resolved that the cable should be laid, and the time fixed for doing it was between the middle of July and the middle of August. A fleet of British and U.S. vessels were appointed for the work. It consisted of the U.S. steam frigate Niagara, and her H.M.S. Agamemnon, with six attendant vessels. The Niagara and Agamemnon were each to contain one half of the cable; they were to attach the ends to their respective shores and then steam off; meet in the middle of the Atlantic, and fasten the other ends together.

Some idea of the stupendous nature of the undertaking may be gathered from the following facts:

The Niagara commenced shipping the cable from the factory at Birkenhead late in June, and a month elapsed before that part of the work was completed. The length of the entire cable was 2200 miles. The construction of the cable was- first a core, or conductor, composed of seven copper wires twisted tightly together; second, three coats of gutta-percha; third, six strands of yarn; and, last, eighteen strands of iron wire. The cable was little more than half an inch in diameter, but it was so strong that six