76 TERBOBS OF NA VIQATOBS AMONG ICEBERGS. 



crash like thunder. The icebergs thus formed — vast moving 

 mountains or islands — are drifted along, some finding their 

 way to the North Atlantic — a distance of more than two 

 thousand two hundred miles from the place of departure — 

 brought down by a strong current which appears to origi- 

 nate under the immense masses of ice which surround the 

 Arctic Pole. 



Fearfully appalling are the dangers arising from these 

 icebergs on their floating voyages, and we cannot wonder at 

 the terror excited by their appearance among the early 

 navigators among these ice-bound seas. In the expedition 

 of Captain James Hall, under Danish auspices, for exploring 

 Greenland, the sailors were in sight of the south point of 

 that country, and, to avoid the ice, which encompassed the 

 shore, they stood to the westward, and fell in with "mighty 

 islands of ice, being very high, like huge mountains of ice, 

 making a hideous and wonderful noise," and on one of them 

 was observed ''a huge rockstone of the weight of three 

 hundred pounds or thereabouts." Finding nothing but ice 

 and fog from the 1st to the 10th of June, the LiovUs people 

 hailed the admiral, " calling very fearfully, and desiring 

 the pilot to alter his course, and return homeward." The 

 alarm spread to the admiraFs ship, and they had determined 

 to put about, had not Cunningham (the captain) protested 

 he would stand by the admiral, "as long as his bloode 

 was warme, for the good of the Kinge^s majestic." This 

 pacified the seamen for a moment, but the next floating 

 island of ice renewed the terrors of those on board the Lim,^ 

 who, having fired a piece of ordnance, stood away to the 

 southward. 



All later voyagers in the Arctic Seas describe the su- 

 blimity of these moving mountains and islands of ice, and 

 the fearful perils encountered among them. The following 

 thrilling instance of hairbreadth escape is related : " It was 

 awful to behold the immense icebergs, working their way 



