50 CRUMBLING ICEBERGS. 



raising a swell which set us rocking to and fro as if in 

 a gale of wind, and left us grinding in the debris of the 

 crumbling ruin. 



At last we succeeded in extricating ourselves, and 

 were far enough away to look back calmly upon the 

 object of our terror. It was still rocking and rolling 

 like a thing of life. At each revolution fresh masses 

 were disengaged ; and, as its sides came up in long 

 sweeps, great cascades tumbled and leaped from them 

 hissing into the foaming sea. After several hours it 

 settled down into quietude, a mere fragment of its for- 

 mer greatness, while the pieces that were broken from 

 it floated quietly away with the tide. 



Whether it was the waves created by the dissolu- 

 tion which I have just described, or the sun's warm 

 rays, or both combined, I cannot pretend to say, but 

 the day was filled with one prolonged series of reports 

 of crumbling icebergs. Scarcely had we been moored 

 in safety when a very large one about two miles dis- 

 tant from us, resembling in its general appearance the 

 British House of Parliament, began to go to pieces. 

 First a lofty tower came plunging into the water, 

 starting from their inhospitable perch an immense 

 flock of gulls, that went screaming up into the air; 

 over went another ; then a whole side settled squarely 

 down ; then the wreck capsized, and at length after 

 five hours of rolling and crashing, there remained of 

 this splendid mass of congelation not a fragment that 

 rose fifty feet above the water. Another, which ap- 

 peared to be a mile in length and upwards of a hun- 

 dred feet in height, split in two with a quick, sharp, 

 and at length long rumbling report, which could 

 hardly have been exceeded by a thousand pieces of , 

 artillery simultaneously discharged, and the two frag- 



