Ice-islands, or icebergs, as they are commonly called, is the name given
by seamen to the huge, solid masses of ice which abound in the sea near
or within the polar circles, and which often float down nearer to the
equator, till they are gradually dissolved by the increasing warmth of
the air and water. The cut gives a view of them as seen by Dr. Scoresby,
who counted five hundred of them between latitude sixty-nine degrees and
seventy degrees north, which were from one hundred to two hundred feet
high, and from a few yards to a mile in circumference. Many of these
fluctuating islands are met with on the coasts of Spitzbergen, to the
great danger of the vessels employed in the Greenland fishery. In the
midst of these tremendous masses, navigators have been arrested and
frozen to death. In this manner the brave Sir Hugh Willoughby perished,
with all his crew, in 1553; and in the year 1773, Lord Mulgrave, after
every effort which the most accomplished seaman could make, to reach the
termination of his voyage, was caught in the ice, and nearly experienced
the same unhappy fate. The scene he describes, divested of the horrors
attendant on the eventful expectation of change, was most beautiful and
picturesque. Two large ships becalmed in a vast basin, surrounded on all
sides by ice-islands of various forms; the weather clear; the sun
gilding the circumambient ice, which was smooth, low, even, and covered
with snow, except where pools of water, on a portion of the surface,
shot forth new icy crystals, and on the smooth surface of the
comparatively small space of sea in which they were hemmed. Such is the
picture drawn by our navigator, amid the perils by which lie was
surrounded.
After fruitless attempts to force their way through the fields of ice,
the limits of these became at length so contracted, that the ships were
immovably fixed. The smooth extent of surface was soon lost; the
pressure of the pieces of ice, by the violence of the swell, caused them
to pack; and fragment rose upon fragment, until they were in many places
higher than the main-yard. The movements of the ships were tremendous
and involuntary, in conjunction with the surrounding ice, actuated by
the currents. The water having shoaled to fourteen fathoms, great
apprehensions were entertained, as the grounding of the ice, or of the
ships, would have been equally fatal: the force of the ice might have
crushed them to atoms, or have lifted them out of the water, and have
overset them; or, again, have left them suspended on the summits of the
pieces of ice, at a tremendous hight, exposed to the fury of the winds,
or to the risk of being dashed to pieces by the failure of their frozen
dock. An attempt was made to cut a passage through the ice; but after a
perseverance truly worthy of Britons, it proved ineffectual. The
commander, who was at all times master of himself, directed the boats to
be made ready to be hauled over the ice, till they should reach
navigable water, proposing in them to make the voyage to England; but
after they had thus been drawn over the ice, for three progressive days,
a wind having sprung up, the ice separated sufficiently to yield to the
pressure of the ships in full sail. After having labored against the
resisting fields of ice, they at length reached the harbor of
Smeerinberg, at the west end of Spitzbergen.
The vast islands of floating ice which abound in the high southern
latitudes, are a proof that they are visited by a much severer degree of
cold than equal latitudes toward the north pole. Captain Cook, in his
second voyage, fell in with one of these islands in latitude fifty
degrees, forty minutes, south. It was about fifty feet high, and half a
mile in circuit, being flat on the top, while its sides, against which
the sea broke exceedingly high, rose in a perpendicular direction. In
the afternoon of the same day, the tenth of December, 1773, he fell in
with another large cubical mass of ice, about two thousand feet in
length, four hundred feet in breadth, and in hight two hundred feet. Mr.
Foster, the naturalist of the voyage, remarks that, according to the
experiments of Boyle and Marian, the volume of ice is to that of
sea-water as ten to nine: consequently, by the known rules of
hydrostatics, the volume of ice which rises above the surface of the
water, is to that which sinks below it as one to nine. Supposing,
therefore, this mass of ice to have been of a regular figure, its depth
under water must have been eighteen hundred feet, and its whole hight,
twenty hundred feet: estimating its length, as above, at twenty hundred
feet, and its breadth at four hundred feet, the entire mass must have
contained sixteen hundred millions of cubic feet of ice.
Two days after, several other ice-islands were seen, some of them nearly
two miles in circuit, and six hundred feet high; and yet such was the
force of the waves, that the sea broke quite over them. They exhibited
for a few moments a view very pleasing to the eye; but a sense of danger
soon filled the mind with horror; for had the ship struck against the
weather-side of one of these islands, when the sea ran high, she must in
an instant have been dashed to pieces. The route to the southward was
afterward impeded by an immense field of low ice, the termination of
which could not be seen, either to the east, west or south. In different
parts of this field were islands, or hills of ice, like those which had
before been found floating in the sea.
At length these ice-islands became as familiar to those on board as the
clouds and the sea. Whenever a strong reflection of white was seen on
the skirts of the sky, near the horizon, then ice was sure to be
encountered; notwithstanding which, that substance itself was not
entirely white, but often tinged, especially near the surface of the
sea, with a most beautiful sapphirine, or rather berylline blue,
evidently reflected from the water. This blue color sometimes appeared
twenty or thirty feet above the surface, and was probably produced by
particles of sea-water which had been dashed against the mass in
tempestuous weather, and had penetrated into its interstices. In the
evening, the sun setting just behind one of these masses, tinged its
edges with gold, and reflected on the entire mass a beautiful suffusion
of purple. In the larger masses, were frequently observed shades or
casts of white, lying above each other in strata, sometimes of six
inches, and at other times of a foot in hight. This appearance seemed to
confirm the opinion entertained relative to the increase and
accumulation of such huge masses of ice, by heavy falls of snow at
different intervals; for snow being of various kinds, small-grained,
large-grained, in light feathery locks, &c., the various degrees of its
compactness may account for the different colors of the strata.
In his third attempt to proceed southward, in January, 1774, Capt. Cook
was led, by the mildest sunshine which was, perhaps, ever experienced in
the frigid zone, to entertain hopes of penetrating as far toward the
south pole as other navigators have done toward the north pole; but on
the twenty-sixth of that month, at four in the morning, his officers
discovered a solid ice-field of immense extent before them, bearing from
east to west. A bed of fragments floated around this field, which was
raised several feet above the surface of the water. While in this
situation, the southern part of the horizon was illuminated by the rays
of light reflected from the ice, to a considerable hight. Ninety-seven
ice-islands were distinctly seen within the field, besides those on the
outside; many of them very large, and looking like a ridge of mountains,
rising one above the other until they were lost in the clouds. The most
elevated and most ragged of these ice-islands, were surmounted by peaks,
and were from two to three hundred feet in hight, with perpendicular
cliffs or sides astonishing to behold. The largest of them terminated in
a peak not unlike the cupola of St. Paul’s.
The outer, or northern edge of this immense field of ice, was composed
of loose or broken ice, closely packed together, so that it was not
possible to find any entrance. Such mountains of ice, Captain Cook was
persuaded, were never seen in the Greenland seas, so that no comparison
could be drawn; and it was the opinion of most of the persons on board,
that this ice extended quite to the pole, from which they were then less
than nineteen degrees; or, perhaps, that it was joined to some land to
which it had been fixed from the earliest time. Our navigator was of
opinion that it is to the south of this parallel that all the ice is
formed which is found scattered up and down to the northward, and
afterward broken off by gales of wind, or other causes, and brought
forward by the currents which are always found to set in that direction
in high latitudes. “Should there,” he observes, “be land to the south
behind this ice, it can afford no better retreat for birds, or any other
animals, than the ice itself, with which it must be wholly covered. I,
who was ambitious, not only to go further than any one had been before,
but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry at meeting
with this interruption; as it in some measure relieved us, or at least
shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of
the southern polar regions.”
The approximation of several fields of ice of different magnitudes,
produces a very singular phenomenon. The smaller of these masses are
forced out of the water, and thrown on the larger ones, until at length
an aggregate is formed of a tremendous hight. These accumulated bodies
of ice float in the sea like so many rugged mountains, and are
continually increased in hight by the freezing of the spray of the sea,
and the melting and then freezing of the snow which falls on them. While
their growth is thus augmented, the smaller fields, of a less elevation,
are the meadows of the seals, on which these animals at times frolic by
hundreds.
The collision of great fields of ice, in high latitudes, is often
attended by a noise, which, for a time, takes away the sense of hearing
anything beside; and that of the smaller fields, with a grinding of
unspeakable horror. The water which dashes against the mountainous ice,
freezes into an infinite variety of forms, and presents to the admiring
view of the voyager ideal towns, streets, churches, steeples, and almost
every form which imagination can picture to itself.
After such notices of the ice-islands from the earlier voyagers, it may
be interesting to know how they have appeared to later beholders; and
this may be seen in the following account from the journal of a seaman
who was in the well known “Arctic Expedition,” in 1850-51. Under the
date of the thirtieth of June, 1850, he writes: “Moored to an iceberg;
weather calm; sky cloudless, and ‘beautifully blue;’ surrounded by a
vast number of stupendous bergs, glittering and glistening beneath the
refulgent rays of a midday sun. A great portion of the crew had gone on
shore to gather the eggs of the wild sea-birds that frequent the lonely
ice-bound precipices of Baffin’s bay, while those on board had retired
to rest, wearied with the harassing toils of the preceding day. To me,
walking the deck and alone, all nature seemed hushed in universal
repose. Whilst thus contemplating the stillness of the monotonous scene
around me, I observed in the offing a large iceberg, completely
perforated, exhibiting in the distance an arch, or tunnel, apparently so
uniform in its conformation, that I was induced to call two of the
seamen to look at it, at the same time telling them, that I had never
read or heard of any of our arctic voyagers passing through one of these
arches, so frequently seen through large bergs, and that there would be
a novelty in doing so; and if they chose to accompany me, I would get
permission to take the small boat, and endeavor to accomplish the
unprecedented feat.
“They readily agreed, and away we went. On nearing the arch, and
ascertaining that there was a sufficiency of water for the boat to pass
through, we rowed slowly and silently under, when there burst upon our
view one of the most magnificent specimens of nature’s handiwork ever
exhibited to mortal eyes; the sublimity and grandeur of which no
language can describe, no imagination conceive. Fancy an immense arch of
eighty feet span, fifty feet high, and upward of one hundred feet in
breadth, as correct in its conformation as if it had been constructed by
the most scientific artist, formed of solid ice, of a beautiful emerald
green, its whole expanse of surface smoother than the most polished
alabaster, and you may form some slight conception of the architectural
beauties of this icy temple, the wonderful workmanship of time and the
elements. When we had got about half-way through the mighty structure,
on looking upward, I observed that the berg was rent the whole breadth
of the arch, and in a perpendicular direction to its summit, showing two
vertical sections of irregular surfaces, ‘darkly, deeply, beautifully
blue,’ here and there illuminated by an arctic sun, which darted its
golden rays between, presenting to the eye a picture of ethereal
grandeur, which no poet could describe, no painter portray. I was so
enraptured with the sight, that for a moment I fancied the ‘blue vault
of heaven’ had opened, and that I actually gazed upon the celestial
splendor of a world beyond this. But, alas! in an instant the scene
changed, and I awoke as it were from a delightful dream, to experience
all the horrors of a terrible reality. I observed the fracture rapidly
close, then again slowly open. This stupendous mass of ice, millions of
tuns in weight, was afloat, consequently in motion, and apparently about
to lose its equilibrium, capsize, or burst into fragments.
“Our position was truly awful. My feelings at the moment may be
conceived, but can not be described. I looked downward and around me;
the sight was equally appalling; the very sea seemed agitated. I at last
shut my eyes from a scene so terrible, the men at the oars, as if by
instinct, ‘gave way,’ and our little craft swiftly glided from beneath
the gigantic mass. We then rowed round the berg, keeping at a respectful
distance from it, in order to judge of its magnitude. I supposed it to
be about a mile in circumference, and its highest pinnacle two hundred
and fifty feet. Thus ended an excursion, the bare recollection of which,
at this moment, awakens in me a shudder; nevertheless, I would not have
lost the opportunity of witnessing a scene so awfully sublime, so
tragically grand, for thousands of pounds, but I would not again run
such a risk for a world. We passed through the berg about two P. M., and
at ten o’clock the same night, it burst, agitating the sea for miles
around. I may also observe, that the two men who were with me in the
boat, did not observe that the berg was rent until I told them, after we
were out of danger, we having agreed, previously to entering the arch,
not to speak a word to each other, lest echo itself should disturb the
fragile mass.”
As further describing the appearances of icebergs, we give the following
narrative by Mr. Abbott, who himself was a witness of the splendid
scenery he so graphically describes. He says: “The trip of the Baltic,
in March, 1854, is likely to be somewhat memorable. We left Sandy Hook,
on Sunday morning, the fifth, and had a propitious and rapid run, until
Friday the tenth, about three o’clock. When in latitude forty-six
degrees and longitude forty-eight degrees, our attention was arrested by
some small pieces of broken ice, floating in every direction around us.
The weather was thick and hazy, so that we could nowhere see the
horizon. In the course of an hour or two, the fog partly disappeared,
and we found ourselves nearly half-surrounded by an immense field of
drift-ice, and large numbers of icebergs, extending from north-east by
south to south-west.
“Our speed was immediately slackened, and the course of the ship changed
to the northward and westward. It soon appeared that we were completely
hemmed in on every side, by immense fields of floating drift, sometimes
in loose and broken masses, sometimes in a compact and immovable jam,
and everywhere studded with vast and towering icebergs, of almost every
conceivable form and size.
“The fog gradually lifted, now in one direction, and now in another,
just sufficient to discover to us, that we were fairly surrounded, and
that, to whatever point of the compass we could turn the eye or the
ship, interminable masses of drift-ice, of uplift, and icebergs, seemed
to cover the sea. So sudden and unexpected was this discovery, that it
seemed more like fairy work than reality. Surprise and astonishment, at
the novel and wonderful scene around us, seemed at first to make us all
unconscious of our own critical situation. Separating from it the idea
of danger, it would be difficult to imagine a scene combining and
blending more of the elements of beauty, grandeur and sublimity. Far as
the eye could reach, it was no longer sea and sky, but ice, ice, ice,
floating like an archipelago of a thousand isles, great and small, of
highland and lowland, mountain, peninsula, promontory, and Gibraltar
rock.
“Running in countless directions through these masses, the ocean waves
appeared in narrow but doubly dark currents, forming the most crooked
and irregular passages, of rivulet and river, and endless indentations
of inlet and bay. Through these labyrinthine passages, perpetually
opening and closing by the action of winds and waves, our escape was to
be made. Once, in attempting to force a passage through a long but
narrow neck of broken blocks of ice, which had drifted across our way,
the cutwater, bows and wheels of the ship, were pretty seriously
battered.
“All night long the ship was kept running slowly, threading her way
through these little passages of clear water, until four o’clock in the
morning, when she was so pressed on every side, with sheets of ice,
crowded and packed far above the surface of the water, and urged on by
the momentum of vast masses of iceberg, that prudence required to stop
the engine and wait for daylight. The morning brought little cheering
prospect. The man at mast-head reported no clear water, as far as the
eye could reach, excepting in narrow and scarcely navigable patches and
veins. The surface of the sea all around the horizon, seemed an almost
unbroken plain of field and mountain ice. As early as light allowed, the
ship was again under way for the largest space of clear water that could
be seen, and continued all day long to retrace her path to the westward,
veering her course, however, through every point of the compass, to find
the intricate passages toward the open sea. The wind, fresh from the
north-west, came with intense and piercing cold. The man at the
mast-head could not stand its severity more than half an hour. The
masts, shrouds and cordage of the ship, were completely incrusted, and
altogether what with field-ice, drift, and icebergs, snow, rain and
hail, gale and storm, these days in the ice will not soon be forgotten.
“The different aspects of these scenes by day and night furnished an
incessant source of interest. The vast fields of drift, in their varied
forms, by daylight and by moonlight, were picturesque and beautiful in
the highest degree. They ranged in extent from a quarter of a mile, to
perhaps ten miles square. In some cases, the entire field seemed to be
composed of small broken fragments, floating in close proximity to each
other, yet yielding readily to the play of the waves, rising and falling
with the swell of the sea. The superincumbent weight upon the surface of
the water, diminished the elevation of the waves, but the reflected
light from its uneven silver surface, revealed far more distinctly and
beautifully, the extent of motion and the action of the waves. The long
swells of the sea stretched away in graceful curves for miles,
resembling more than anything else I can suggest, some of the rolling
prairies of the west, as they must appear in snow, with this difference,
that the swells seemed ‘all alive,’ as if some mighty monsters of the
deep were working their way beneath, perpetually shifting their
position, and vainly endeavoring to lift the load that covers them, to
find a breathing in the open air. In other instances, these vast fields,
stretching as far as the eye could reach over half the visible horizon,
were one compact and apparently motionless mass of solid ice, as fixed
as a ‘rock-bound coast.’
“Another form of peculiar interest was that of a wide field, of many
miles in extent, apparently formed by a long succession of ‘uplifts.’
The action of the waves had gradually forced large blocks of ice beneath
one edge, and the long continuation of this process, had lifted as it
would seem, almost the entire mass, many feet out of water. The outer
edge of these uplifts presented an abrupt and perpendicular wall. In one
case, at night, the captain estimated that he had sailed for ten miles,
along such a wall, the hight of the wheel-house, about forty feet. A
very beautiful effect was once produced by a small mass of this kind. It
was several miles distant, and of very considerable length. As it rolled
and pitched, one side, apparently fifteen or twenty feet high, dipped in
the waves, and rising again, lifted an immense volume of water, which
then ran off, in a beautiful and magnificent torrent, over the rising
edge. I watched with my glass for an hour, the graceful evolutions of
this interesting cataract, which is probably still performing, by its
regular rise and fall, a very respectable, but intermittent Niagara, in
the middle of the Atlantic, with all the regularity of a pendulum.
“The icebergs, themselves, which we saw, were very numerous, and of
almost every conceivable form and size. During our passage through three
hundred miles, the number we observed was variously estimated from five
hundred to one thousand. I counted at one time thirty-six, and at
another forty-five, all of notable magnitude. They sometimes were of
most curious and fantastic shapes. Hill and mountain of every imaginable
outline, castle and tower, turret, and out-jutting and overhanging
crags, magnificent needle forms shooting to the sky, like the spire of
Trinity, crouching lions, and polar bears, trees of ice, and natural
bridges, in short, you can scarcely fancy anything odd, that snow and
ice can be made to resemble, that had not its type around us.
“But, perhaps, the most wonderful of all, was the great ‘plunging
iceberg.’ It was a round, oblong mass of ice, estimated by careful
comparison with our wheel-house, to be fifty by seventy-five feet. A
side view made it appear about as large as the front of a large, double,
four story dwelling. But it was as true and perfect an oval, as the most
exquisitely beautiful bald head you have ever seen. It looked exactly
like the upper part of a head of some gigantic being. This, as it
floated past us, gradually descended in the waves, until it sunk beneath
the surface. It then rose with a most majestic movement, lifting the
pure white crown, to the hight of fifty feet. It presented on the whole,
one of the grandest sights I ever beheld. It continued thus sinking and
rising till it was out of our sight. It seemed like a creature of life,
paying its respects to our noble ship.”