VESSELS LOST B Y CONTACT WITH ICEBERGS. 79 



a broad border of loose ice, consisting of numerous floes 

 and icebergs, and a considerable quantity of floating ice. 

 To make way between these masses, the steamer was com- 

 pelled frequently to change her course, for fear of coming 

 in contact with them. The number of icebergs which were 

 in sight of the vessel amounted to three hundred, and the 

 largest was three-fourths of a mile long, and about a hun- 

 dred feet high. A similar calamity to that which is sup- 

 posed to have befallen the President is said to have well- 

 nigh occurred to the brig Anne, of Poole, which, in a voy- 

 age from Newfoundland to England, was so completely be- 

 set by ice that no means of escape were visible. The ice 

 in its whole extent rose fourteen feet above the surface of 

 the water. It drifted toward the southeast, and bore the 

 ship along with it for twenty-nine successive days. An 

 opening most providentially occurred, by which the vessel 

 became disengaged. 



The President in 1841, the City of Glasgow in 1854, the 

 Pacific in 1856, and, later, the City of Boston, have disap- 

 peared, from, it is supposed, their contact with icebergs. 



Captain Ross draws a vivid picture of what a vessel is ex- 

 posed to in sailing amidst these moving hills. He reminds his 

 readers that ice is like stone, as solid as if it were granite, 

 and he bids them *' imagine these mountains hurled through 

 a narrow strait at a rapid rate, meeting with the noise of 

 thunder, breaking from each other's precipices huge frag- 

 ments, or rending each other asunder, until, losing their 

 former equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea 

 around in breakers, and whirling it in eddies. There is not 

 a moment in which it can be conjectured what will happen 

 in the next; there is not one which may not be the last." 



It is generally found that a strong current runs along the 

 sides of an iceberg, and a vessel approaching too near is vio- 

 vently forced against the mass, and dashed to pieces. 



Another source of danger arises from mooring vessels to 



