A NEW FUR-SEAL ROOKERY 
161 
water was 32° F., indicating ice in the vicinity. 
The next day we ran into ice-fields, and stood away 
to the southward to clear them. On the 18th we 
felt the effects of some submarine disturbance, the 
vessel trembling and a low rumbling noise being 
heard. Immense fields of hummocky ice were 
passed, extending some thirty miles offshore. On the 
19th we got beset with thick ice all round as far as 
the eye could reach; but the following day we reached 
open water, steering south and south-east. 
In the evening we altered our course to north- 
north-east, the sea being clear in that direction, 
and we thought we had at last got away from 
the ice; but about 2.30 a.m. on the 21st we again 
ran into an immense field. We were running 
with a fair six-knot breeze, winged out. The night 
was clear, and the moon, in her last quarter, was 
low, so that the ice could not be seen until we were 
close upon it, although much of it was 6 to 8 feet 
above water. The mate whose watch it was got 
“ rattled ” when he realized that he was running full 
tilt into what looked like solid ice, and put his helm 
just the opposite way to that in which he ought to 
have put it. The schooner crashed into the floe, 
making a tremendous noise to those below, who 
rushed on deck thinking she had run on the rocks ; 
the well was sounded, but she was making no water. 
Fortunately, the ice all along the edge of the field, 
although it was in large masses, was soft and spongy ; 
we went into it with such force that, had it been 
hard, solid ice, holes must inevitably have been 
knocked in the vessel’s bows, if not more serious 
damage done. It took some hours to work out of 
this ice, and we again ran away to the southward, 
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