dangerous situation of the SHIP. 305 
When the pressure ceased, we found that the ship 
had risen six or eight feet forward, and about two 
feet abaft. 
The floe on the starboard side was about a mile 
in diameter, and forty feet in thickness, having a 
regular wall-side of solid ice, five feet in height 
above the sea; on the tongue of this the ship was 
grounded. The iceberg on the larboard side was 
about twenty feet high, and was in contact 
with the railing at the bows, and with the gun¬ 
wale and channel-bends amidships. This berg 
was connected with a body of floes to the west¬ 
ward, several leagues in breadth. The only clear 
place was directly astern, where a small interstice 
and vein of water was produced, by the interven¬ 
tion of the bergs. Any human exertion for our 
extrication, from such a situation, was now in 
vain; the ship being firmly cradled upon the 
tongues of ice, which sustained her weight. Every 
instant we were apprehensive of her total destruc¬ 
tion ; but the extraordinary disposition of the ice 
beneath her, was the means of her preservation. 
The force exerted upon the ship, to place her in 
such a situation, must evidently have been very 
violent. Two or three sharp cracks were heard at 
the time the ship was lifted, and a piece of plank, 
which proved to be part of the false keel, was torn 
off and floated up by thebows; butno serious injury 
was yet discovered. Our situation, however, was 
