* 
244 * ICE BREAKING UP. 
thickness by twenty of perpendicular height, and some 
of them fifteen yards in length, surging up into the 
misty air, heaving, rolling, tottering, and falling with 
a majestic deliberation worthy of the forces that im- 
pelled them. "When a huge block would rise verti- 
cally, tremble for a moment, and topple over, you heard 
the heavy sough of the snow-padding that received it ; 
but this was only the deep bass accompaniment to a 
wild, yet not unmusical chorus. I can not attempt to 
describe the sounds. There was the ringing clatter 
of ice, made friable by the intense cold and crumbling 
under lateral force ; the low whine which the ice gives 
out when we cut it at right angles with a sharp knife, 
rising sometimes into a shriek, or sinking to the plaint- 
ive outcry of our night-hawk at home ; the whirr of 
rapidly-urged machinery ; the hum of multitudes : and 
all these mingled with tones that have no analogy 
among the familiar ones of unadventurous life. 
" So slowly and regularly did these masses roll, rise, 
break, and fall, that, standing upon a broad table, ice- 
pole in air, we rolled when it rolled, rose when it rose, 
balanced when it broke, and jumped as it fell. What 
would our quiet people in brick houses say to such a 
ride 1 Temperature at 30° below zero. 
" On deck ; looming up in the very midst of the 
haze, land ! so high and close on our port beam, that 
we felt like men under a precipice. We could see 
the vertical crevices in the limestone, the recesses con- 
trasting in black shadow. What land is this ? Is it 
the eastern line of Cape Riley, or have we reached 
Cape Uicketts ? 
" There is one thing tolerably certain : the G-rinnell 
expedition is quite as likely to be searched for here- 
after as to search. Poor Sir John Franklin ! this night- 
drift is an ugly omen. 
