GREENLAND OR POLAR ICE, 291 



ivhen the temperate air thaws its surface. Bergs, 

 on being struck by an axe, for the purpose of 

 placing a mooring anchor, have been known to 

 rend asunder and precipitate the careless seamen 

 into the yawning chasm, whilst occasionally the 

 masses are hurled apart, and fall in contrary di- 

 rections with a prodigious crush, burying boats 

 and men in one common ruin. The awful ef- 

 fect produced by a solid mass many thousands of 

 tons in weight, changing its situation with the 

 ! velocity of a falling body^ whereby its aspiring 

 summit is in a moment buried in the ocean, can 

 be more easily imagined than described ! 



If the blow with any edge-tool on brittle ice 

 does not sever the mass, still it is often succeeded 

 by a crackling noise, proving the mass to be ready 

 to burst from the action of an internal expan- 

 sion ; in this way, sometimes deep chasms are 

 formed, similar to those occurring in the Glaciers^ 

 of the Alps. 



It is common, when ships moor to icebergs, to 

 lie as remote from the danger as their ropes will 

 allow, and yet accidents sometimes happen, though 

 the ship ride at a distance of a hundred yards 

 from the ice. Thus, calves rising up with a velo^ 

 eity nearly equal to that of the descent of a fal- 

 ling berg, have produced destructive effects. In 

 the year 1812, whilst the Thomas of Hull, Cap- 

 tain Taylor, lay moored to an iceberg in Davis'' 

 Straits, a calf was detached from beneath, and 



