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GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
the gale in safety. The first circumstance of dif¬ 
ficulty was the sight of an iceberg “ setting up’ 7 
to windward, in a straight line for the ship. Per¬ 
ceiving, however, as it rapidly neared us, that it 
would pass across our stern if we could heave the 
ship a little a-head, we made the attempt, and 
succeeded. It passed within a few feet of the 
rudder; and, when at a very little distance, di¬ 
vided into two, and both parts upset with a terri¬ 
ble commotion. Had it broken against the ship, 
its effects might have been destructive. The fra¬ 
gility of icebergs, at this season, is well known, 
and their liability to break and turn over, quite 
notorious. In the summer of 1821 the captain 
of a whaler that had been wrecked in Baffin’s Bay, 
wishing to make himself useful in the ship that he 
had fled to for refuge, offered to assist in fixing 
an anchor in an iceberg, to which it was expe¬ 
dient that the ship should be made fast. He was 
accompanied by a sailor to the berg, and began to 
make a hole for the reception of the ice-anchor; 
but almost the first blow that he struck with the 
axe, occasioned an instantaneous rent of the mass 
of ice through the middle, and the two portions 
fell in opposite directions. The captain, aware 
of his danger, the instant the ice began to move, 
ran up the division on which he was situated, in 
the contrary direction of its revolution, and for- 
