290 GREENLAND OR POLAR ICE. 



a Stable mooring to a ship in strong adverse winds, 

 or when a state of rest is required for the per- 

 formance of the different operations attendant on 

 a successful fishery. The fisher likewise avails 

 himself of this quiescent property, when his ship 

 is incommoded or rendered unmanageable by the 

 accumulation of drift-ice around, when his object 

 is to gain a windward situation more open. He 

 gets under the lea of the ice-berg, — the loose ice 

 soon forces past the berg, — the ship remains near- 

 ly stationary,— and the wished-for effect seldom 

 fails to result. Mooring to /o/h/ icebergs, is at- 

 tended with considerable danger : being sometimes 

 finely balanced, they are apt to be overturned j 

 and whilst floating in a tide-way, should their base 

 be arrested by the ground, their detrusion ne- 

 cessarily follows, attended with a thundering 

 noise, and the crushing of every object they en- 

 counter in their descent : thus have vessels been 

 often staved, and sometimes wrecked, by the fall 

 of their icy mooring. Men and boats are a 

 weaker prey, — the vast waves alone occasioned 

 by such events, at once overwhelming every smal- 

 ler object, within a considerable distance of the 

 rolling mountain. 



Fragility of Icebergs. 



All pure ice becomes exceedingly fragile to- 

 wards the close of the whale-fishing seasoD;, 



