the midnight
sun
`` There you have me , '' said the old sailor , who had from his speech evidently received a good education ; and if once `` before the mast '' had now certainly risen to something much higher . `` To men whose minds have been wrought up to such a pitch of fancy and expectation , the first sight of a real iceberg is a complete take-down to their imagination . Your ship is pitching about , say , in the cross seas near the mouth of Davis Strait , preparatory to entering within the smooth water of the Arctic circle , when in the far distance your eye catches sight of a lump of ice , looking , as it rises and falls sluggishly in the trough of the sea , not unlike a hencoop covered with snow , after it had been pitched overboard by some passing ship , or like a gigantic lump of foam tossed on the crest of a wave . If the day is sunless , the reflection of light which gives it that glistening appearance , so remarkable as the midnight sun glances among an array of these objects , is wanting to add dignity to the contour of what it is a rude dissipation of life 's young dream to learn is an iceberg -- though on a very small scale . It is simply a wave - worn straggler from the fleet which will soon be met sailing southward out of the Greenland fjords . The warm waters of the Atlantic will in the course of a few days be too much for it . The sun will be at work on it ; it will get undermined by the wash of the breakers , until , being top-heavy , it will speedily capsize .