DANGEROUS FLOES OF ICE. 85 



the bows, to the great danger of the bowsprit. 

 The Dorothea was in no less imminent danger, 

 especially from the point of a floe, which came 

 in contact with her side, where it remained a 

 short time, and then glanced off, and became 

 checked by the field to which she was moored. 

 The enormous pressure to which the ship had 

 been subjected was now apparent by the field 

 being rent, and its point broken into frag- 

 ments, which were speedily heaped up in a 

 pyramid, thirty-five feet in height, upon the 

 very summit of which there appeared a huge 

 mass, bearing the impression of the planks and 

 bolts of the vessel's bottom ! 



It is remarkable that, although we had in- 

 disputable evidence that it was blowing a gale of 

 wind at sea — by the enormous pressure upon the 

 ice, the roaring of the sea upon the edge of 

 the pack, and the aspect of the sky, — the ships 

 were so perfectly becalmed that the vane at the 

 mast-head was scarcely agitated. There was also 

 a most marked difference in the state of the at- 

 mosphere over the packed ice and that over the 

 open sea. Over the ice the sky was perfectly 

 cloudless ; whilst the sea was overcast with 

 stormy-looking clouds, which passed heavily along 

 with the gale, until they reached a line nearly 

 perpendicular to the edge of the packed ice. 



