138 A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. 



" Both sledges, however, succeeded in gaining the 

 shore, and were drawn up on the beach, though not 

 without great difficulty. Scarcely had they reached 

 it, when that part of the ice from which they had 

 just escaped burst asunder, and the water, rushing 

 up from beneath, instantly precipitated it into the 

 ocean. In a moment, as if by a signal, the whole 

 mass of ice for several miles along the coast, and 

 extending as far as the eye could reach, began to 

 break up, and to be overwhelmed by the waves. 

 The spectacle was awfully grand. The immense 

 fields of ice rising out of the ocean clashing against 

 each other, and then plunging into the deep with 

 a violence which no language can describe, and with 

 a noise like the discharge of a thousand cannon, was 

 a sight which must have filled the most unreflect- 

 ing mind with feelings of solemnity. 



" The Brethren were overwhelmed with amaze- 

 ment at their miraculous escape, and even the 

 Esquimaux expressed gratitude to God for their de- 

 liverance." 



Such is the terrible aspect in which field-ice is 

 seen when broken up and converted into smaller 

 masses or floes. When these lie closely together 

 the mass is called pack-ice j in which shape it usually 

 drifts away with the southern currents, and, sepa- 

 rating as it travels south, is met with in loose, 

 floating masses, of every fantastic form. There is 

 always, as we have said, a large quantity of floe and 

 pack-ice in the .polar seas, which becomes incorpo- 



