OF PLANTS. 233 



of the vessel were covered with great shining masses. The 

 crew were half frozen, and we could not move a rope 

 through a block without pouring hot water upon it. We 

 had but little daylight, on account of the thick fog, and the 

 long awful nights were still more dreadful, when the ship 

 rose uphill over the black waves and sank down again into 

 the abyss, so that every moment we dreaded to be shattered 

 on the masses of ice which the howling storm drove over 

 the roaring sea, like palely shining, foaming night-demons 

 sent for our destruction. One morning, toward the end 

 of the storm, after a fresh fall of snow, an iceberg, five 

 hundred feet high, approached us with frightful rapidity ; 

 already was it awfully close to us, when the terrible cry 

 arose, 'It turns !'* On it came, its tottering summit 

 bowing over toward our bows. Our fate seemed decided ; 

 the whole of the gigantic mass was sinking over upon our 

 vessel, and must shatter us to pieces. We all fell on our 

 knees, silently praying, and expecting the terrible mo- 

 ment ; even the helmsman knelt, but without letting go the 

 tiller. The iceberg was already half-way over, when, from 

 unequal weight of its lower submerged part, it turned, and 

 a moment after fell into the sea a cable's length behind our 

 stern, hurling the water in masses of foam over the very 

 tops of the masts, and blinding us from the force with 

 which the icy drops were splashed over our faces. For a 

 whole minute the waves seemed checked in their course, 

 the sea seemed to boil, the ship trembled and rocked, and 



* The loosened masses of Polar ice, driven by storms into lower 

 latitudes, often project several hundred feet high above the sea, but a 

 still more considerable portion remains submerged. This latter is 

 gradually melted by the warmth of the water, and then comes a time 

 when the whole iceberg falls over, the lower end rising above the 

 surface, while the previously visible end sinks down. 



