58 
FORMATION OF ICEBERGS. 
deitz, in a jolly-toat belonging to the company, was 
fishing up the fiord, his attention was called to a large 
number of bearded seals, who were sporting about be- 
neath one of the glaciers that protruded into the bay. 
While approaching for the purpose of a shot, he heard 
a strange sound, repeated at intervals like the ticking 
of a clock, and apparently proceeding from the body 
of the ice. At the same time the seal, which the mo- 
ment before had been perfectly unconcerned, disap- 
peared entirely, and his Esquimaux attendants, prob- 
ably admonished by previous experience, insisted upon 
removing the boat to a greater distance. It was well 
they did so ; for, while gazing at the white face of 
the glacier at a distance of about a mile, a loud ex- 
plosive detonation, like the crack of a whip vastly ex- 
aggerated, reached their ears, and at the same instant, 
with reverberations like near thunder, a great mass 
fell into the sea, obscuring every thing in a cloud of 
foam and mist. 
The undulations which radiated from this great 
centre of displacement were fearful. Fortunately for 
Mr. Grundeitz, floating bodies do not change their 
position very readily under the action of propagated 
waves, and the boat, in consequence, remained outside 
the grinding fragments ; but the commotion was in- 
tense, and the rapid succession of huge swells such as 
to make the preservation of the little party almost mi- 
raculous. 
The detached mass slowly adjusted itself after some 
minutes, but it was nearly an hour before it attained 
its equilibrium. It then floated on the sea, an ice- 
berg.* 
* This title is applied by many authors to ice masses either on shore or at 
sea. I restrict it to detached ice, in contradistinction to the glacier or ice in situ. 
