1875 SUDDEN SQUALL. 133 



after a considerable amount of manoeuvring to clear 

 the cable from the heavy ice about which it had 

 become entangled, the ship was removed from her 

 exposed position. 



The protected space available for shelter was so 

 contracted and shallow, the entrance to it so small, 

 and the united force of the wind and flood-tide so 

 powerful, that it was with much labour and no trifling 

 expense in broken hawsers that the ship was hauled in 

 stern foremost. It was a close race whether the ice or 

 the ship would be in first, and my anxiety was much 

 relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing clear into 

 safety just as the advancing edge of the heavy pack 

 closed in against the outside of our friendly barrier of 

 ice. 



From our position of comparative security the 

 danger we had so narrowly escaped was strikingly 

 apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe at the 

 power exerted by the ice, driven past us to the east- 

 ward with irresistible force by the wind and flood- tide 

 at the rate of about a mile an hour. 



The projecting points of each passing floe which 

 grounded near the shore in about ten fathoms of water 

 would be at once wrenched off from its still moving 

 parent mass ; the pressure continuing, the several 

 pieces, frequently 30,000 tons in weight, would be 

 forced up the inclined shore, rising slowly and majesti- 

 cally ten or twelve feet above their old line of flotation. 

 Such pieces quickly accumulated until a rampart-like 

 barrier of solid ice-blocks, measuring about two 

 hundred yards in breadth and rising fifty feet high, 

 lined the shore, locking us in, but effectually protecting 

 us from the overwhelming power of the pack. 



