20 
HISTORY OF THE WHALE. 
manifold. The most obvious peril is that of the ship 
being beset and sometimes dashed to pieces by the 
approach and collision of those mighty fields and 
mountains of ice with which those seas are continu- 
ally filled. 
Didier Albert Raven, a Dutchman, in 1639, while 
prosecuting this fishery, was assailed by a furious 
tempest. There suddenly appeared two immense ice- 
bergs, upon which the wind was driving the vessel. 
The ship struck against one so hard, that she was 
soon .found to be sinking. Several boats were launch- 
ed for escape; but, being overcrowded, they sunk, 
and all on board perished. Those left in the ship 
found their condition growing more desperate every 
moment. The stern separated from the rest of the 
vessel, carrying with it many of the sailors. The 
survivors still clung to the wretched fragments; but 
one after another was washed off, and others, half 
dead with cold, dropped into the sea, till a crew of 
eighty-six was reduced to twenty-nine. The sea at 
last calmed, and they were better enabled to keep 
their foot-hold on board; but their sufferings from 
cold, hunger, and burning thirst were so extreme, 
that death seemed to be a release. The next morn- 
ing a vessel was seen, and twenty survivors were taken 
on board, after forty-eight hours of extreme danger 
and suffering. 
In 1670, the Bleacher, Captain Pitt, was driven 
against the ice with such violence, that in an instant 
all her rigging was dashed in pieces. Soon after, 
twenty-nine of the crew quitted the vessel, and, leap- 
