V 
A PINCH. 123 
unswerving, unchecked continuousness. The mere 
commotion was hardly proportioned either to the in- 
tensity of the force or the tremendous effects which it 
produced. Tables of white marble were thrust into 
the air, as if by invisible machinery. 
First, an inclined face would rise, say ten feet ; then 
you would hear a grinding, tooth-pulling crunch : it 
has cracked at its base, and a second is sliding up 
upon it. Over this, again, comes a third ; and here- 
upon the first breaks down, carrying with it the sec- 
ond ; and just as you are expecting to see the whole 
pile disappear, up comes a fourth, larger than any of 
the rest, and converts all its predecessors into a cha- 
otic mass of crushed marble. Now the fragments thus 
comminuted are about the size of an old-fashioned 
Conestoga wagon, and the line thus eating its way is 
several hundred yards long. 
The action soon began to near our brig, which now, 
fast by a heavy cable, stood bows on awaiting the 
onset. It was an uncomfortable time for us, as we 
momentarily expected it to " nip" her sides, or bear 
her down with the pressure. But, thanks to the in- 
verted wedge action of her bows, she shot out like a 
squeezed water-melon seed, snapping her hawser like 
pack-thread, and backing into wider quarters. The 
Rescue was borne almost to her beam ends, but event- 
ually rose upon the ice. The rudders of both brigs 
were unshipped. 
This closure of the seaward ice upon the land floe 
was evidently connected with a change of winds. On 
the day before, the 10th, the ice had relaxed all around 
us, under a gentle air from the northward ; but a grad- 
ually increasing breeze from the E.S.E,, commencing 
about nine in the evening, had tightened the floes, 
