CRISIS. 
249 
floe, still reducing its dimensions, and at one time 
bringing down our vessel again to an even keel. An 
hour afterward, the chasms would close around us with 
a sound like escaping steam. Again they would open 
under some mysterious influence ; a field of ice from 
two to four inches thick would cover them ; and then, 
without an apparent change of causes, the separated 
sides would come together with an explosion like a 
mortar, craunching the newly-formed field, and driving 
it headlong in fragments for fifty feet upon the floe till 
it piled against our bulwarks. Every thing betokened 
a crisis. Sledges, boats, packages of all sorts, were dis- 
posed in order; contingencies were met as they ap- 
proached by new delegations of duty ; every man was 
at work, oflicer and seaman alike ; for necessity, when 
it spares no one, is essentially democratic, even on ship- 
board. The Rescue, crippled and thrown away from 
us to the further side of a chasm, w^as deserted, and 
her company consolidated with ours. Our own brig 
groaned and quivered under the pressure against her 
sides. I give my diary for December 7. 
Decembei' 7, Saturday. The danger which sur- 
rounds us is so immediate, that in the bustle of prep- 
aration for emergency I could not spend a moment 
upon my journal. Now the little knapsack is made 
up again, and the blanket sewed and strapped. The 
little home Bible at hand, and the ice-clothes ready 
for a jump. 
