542 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



ing less resistance from the water, 

 in proportion as its depth beneath 

 the surface is diminished. Fiom 

 the iceberg's firmness, it often 

 affords a stable mooiing to a ship 

 in strong adverse winds, or when 

 a state of rest is rccjuired for the 

 ])erformajice of the different ope- 

 rations attendant on a successful 

 fishery. The fisher likewise avails 

 himself of this quiescent property, 

 when his ship is incommoded or 

 rendered unmanageable by the ac- 

 cumulation of drift-ice around, 

 when his object is to gain a wind- 

 ward situation more open. He 

 gets under the lea of the iceberg, 

 — the loose ice soon forces past 

 the berg, — the ship remains nearly 

 stationary, — and the wished-for 

 effect seldom fails to result. Moor- 

 ing to lofty icebergs is attended 

 with considerable danger : being 

 sometimes finely balanced, they 

 are apt to be overturned ; and 

 whilst floating in a tide-way, 

 shoidd their base be arrested by 

 the ground, their detrusion neces- 

 sarily follows, attended with a 

 thundering noise, and the crushing 

 of every object they encounter in 

 their descent : thus have vessels 

 been often staved, and sometimes 

 wrecked, by the fall of their icy 

 mooring. Men and boats are a 

 weaker prey, — the vast waves 

 alone occasioned by such events, at 

 once overwhelming every smaller 

 object, within a considerable dis- 

 tance of the rolling mountain. 



Fragility of Ict.bergs. 



All pure ice becomes exceed- 

 ingly fragile towards the close of 

 the whale-fishing season, when 

 the temperate air thaws its surface. 

 Bergs, on being struck by an axe. 



for the purpose of placing a moor- 

 ing anchor, have been known to 

 rend asunder and precipitate the 

 careless seamen into the yawning 

 chasm, whilst occasionally the 

 masses are hurled apart, and fall 

 in contrary directions with a pro- 

 digious crush, burying boats and 

 men in one common ruin. The 

 awful effect produced by a solid 

 mass many thousands of tons in 

 weight, changing its situation 

 with the velocity of a falling body, 

 whereby its aspiring sumn)it is in 

 a moment buried in the ocean, 

 can be more easily imagined than 

 described ! 



If the blow with any edge-tool 

 on brittle ice does not sever the 

 mass, still it is often succeeded by 

 a crackling noise, proving the 

 mass to be ready to burst from the 

 action of an internal expansion ; 

 in this way, sometimes deep chasms 

 are formed, similar to those oc- 

 curring in the Glaciers of the 

 Alp?. 



It is common, when ships moor 

 to icebergs, to lie as remote from 

 the danger as their ropes will al- 

 low, and yet accidents sometimes 

 happen, though the ship ride at a 

 distance of a hundred yards from 

 the ice. Thus, calves rising up 

 with a velocity nearly equal to that 

 of the descent of a falling berg, 

 have produced destructive effects. 

 In the year 1812, whilst the Tho- 

 mas of Hull, Captain Taylor, lay 

 moored to an icebeig in Davis' 

 Straits, a calf was detached from 

 beneath, and rose with such tre- 

 mendous force, that the keel of 

 the ship was lifted even with the 

 water at the bow, whilst the stern 

 was nearly immersed beneath the 

 surface. Fortunately the ship was 

 not materially damaged. 



From 



