100 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
tions, Indeed, the ice was extremely crowded and 
closely connected, so that we were unable either 
to advance or to recede. Small changes, however, 
occasionally took place in the ice immediately 
around us; the floes between which we lay, fre¬ 
quently coming into contact with considerable 
violence, and others beyond them at the same 
time separating. These changes obliged us to be 
continually on the alert, to avoid the concussions 
of the ice, which would probably have been de¬ 
structive to the ship, and fatal to our lives. The 
ice around was not of an ordinary kind ; but was 
the most ponderous and rugged that I almost 
ever saw. The general elevation, and apparently 
interminable extent of the floes, with the im¬ 
mense load of hummocks on their edges, indica¬ 
tive of the tremendous crushes that had recently 
occurred, gave a grand but rather awful character 
to the scenery. The hummocks on the edges of 
the floes consisted of ridges, blocks, and hillocks of 
ice, twenty, thirty, or even forty feet in elevation; 
and in the interior of many sheets of ice, there were 
great numbers of hummocks of twenty feet, and 
upwards. It was impossible to contemplate these 
vast elevations of ice, without reflecting on the 
enormous power which must have been exerted to 
rear ridges of many thousands of tons weight; 
and to break and crumble the edges of fields 
