Iceberg

“ The ancient Arctic mariner will tell you that an iceberg can sail against the wind as well as with it! Gripped for two-thirds of its bulk by a strong under-current, it can crash its way and forge ahead against the wildest adverse gale. An old whaler told of an experience he had when his ship was beset by the loose floe, and like to be crushed to matchwood. The men were striving all they knew to get her into safety, when a vast berg drove slowly down beside her through the ice, shouldering it aside as a giant liner drives through a heavy sea. ”

“ No other side will present this view at all. Change of position gives an iceberg almost as many appearances as a cumulous cloud assumes at sunset in the summer sky.
We have rounded an angle to the southern front, and look upon a precipice of newly broken alabaster crowned with a lofty peak and pinnacles. A slight sketch seems to satisfy the painter, and so we pass round to the eastern or ocean side, at which Captain Knight, an experienced iceberger, expresses both delight and surprise. ”

“ We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef, that flanked the small cape, in the finest style,—a beautiful dance of breakers of dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward, and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. “There it is!” ”

“ In all its notched, zigzag and flowing outline, it palpitates and glitters as if it were bordered with the very lightning. He that watches the Andean clouds of a July sunset, and beholds them rimmed, now with pink and rose-hues, and now with golden fire, will see the edges of an iceberg when it stands against the sky glowing with the yellow and orange blaze of sunset. We go to the skies for pure azure; you will find it at twilight in these wonderful Greenland ices. I am looking now upon what mimics the ruins of a tower, every block of which, in one light, gleams like crystal ”

“ Jeorling,” was Hurliguerly’s reply. “If the current goes to the pole, we shall go there; and if it doesn’t, we shan’t. An iceberg isn’t a ship, and as it has neither sails nor helm, it goes as the drift takes it.” ”

“ Almost over us, a Greek-like figure-head, sculptured from shining crystal, gazes with serene majesty upon the white daylight in the northwest. Possessed with the mournful and nearly supernatural beauty, we forget the dangers of this intimacy. There is a strange fascination, and particularly at this hour, that draws like the fabulous music of the Sirens. We are headed homeward, riding silently over the glassy waves. The surf rings in the hollows of the iceberg, and sounds upon the shores like the last blows of the weary day. ”

“ The imaginative spectator could fancy all kinds of resemblances, but the "cold fact" remained that they were simply mountains of ice, with no more symmetry of outline than a mass of rock blasted from a quarry.
"I have read," said Fred, "that in the iceberg factories of the north, as they are called, they are sometimes two or three years in forming, before they break loose and sweep off into the ocean."
"That is true," added Captain McAlpine; "an iceberg is simply a chunk off a frozen river, and a pretty good-sized one, it must be admitted. ”

“ Constantly, too, there came the roar of the ocean swell as it broke among the icebergs and caverns, or the splash of water like a distant cataract as it fell from the lofty summits of the bergs, mingling with the crackling noise emitted by the masses of ice as they struck each other or their summits were broken off. Sometimes an iceberg would overturn or the top come hurtling down with a crash into the sea, covering the water with foam, and sending the birds which had perched there flying in all directions to seek a more secure resting-place. ”

“ Before we can get back, and get away to a safe distance, by the force of mere sailor power, back rolls the berg, up rises the broad slope, followed quickly by the precipices rising up, up, and up into lofty cliffs, with a foreground, a new revelation of ice; in a word, the prongs and spurs now below us in the transparent deep. In all this play of the iceberg and the sea, what will be our part? ”

“ Here at all events was honest blue saltwater frozen solid, and when, as we proceeded, the scattered fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, until at last we found oumelves enveloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs,—it seemed as if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice islets were remarkable; anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. ”

“ As the light streams over and around from the illuminated side, the entire outline of the berg shines like newly-burnished silver in the blaze of noon. The painter is working with all possible rapidity; but we pass too quick to harvest all this beauty: he can only glean some golden straws. A few sharp words from the captain bring the vessel to, and we pause long enough for some finishing touches. He has them, and we are off again. An iceberg is an object most difficult to study, for which many facilities, much time, and some danger are indispensable. ”

“ Like cumulous clouds, icebergs are perpetually mimicking the human face. This fine crystal creature, by a change in our position, becomes a gigantic bust of poet or philosopher, leaning back and gazing with a fixed placidity into the skies. In the brilliant noon, portions of it glisten like a glassy waterfall. The cold, dead white, the subtle greens, the blues, shadows of the softest slate, all contrast with the flashing brightness in a way most exquisite to behold. True to all the forms of nature that swell to the sublime, an iceberg grows upon the mind astonishingly. ”

“ Certainly, an iceberg is not the pleasantest spot for a location. At length, one day, I saw something like a ship’s longboat in the distance. It approached the iceberg in the most mysterious manner. We watched it eagerly. It was not a boat after all, but a log of timber, and—you need not believe me if you’d rather not, but it’s a fact—there was our pet bear Bruin towing the timber at the rate of six knots an hour. ”

“ Here, methought me of the mighty glacier, creeping on like Time, silently, yet ceaselessly; the deep and picturesque fiord pent up between precipices, huge, bleak, and barren; the iceberg! alone a miracle; then the great central desert of black lava and glittering ice, gloomy and unknown but to the fleet rein-deer, who seeks for shelter in a region at whose horrors the hardy natives tremble; and last, but not least, the ruins of the Scandinavian inhabitants, and the present fast disappearing race of "the Innuit," or Esquimaux. Dullard must he be who sees not abundance here to interest him. ”

“ It melts at every pore, and streams as if a perpetually overflowing fountain were upon the summit, and flashes and scintillates like one vast brilliant. Prongs and reefs of ice jutting from the body of the berg below, and over which we pass, give the water that emerald clearness so lovely to the eye, and open to the view something like the fanciful sea-green caves. We now lie to, under the lee side, fearfully close, it seems to me, when I recollect the warning of the Bishop, never, on any account, to venture near an iceberg. ”

“ He scatters the icebergs hither and thither to the great terror of the mariner, and converts the moisture of the clouds into the blinding snow-flake or the pelting hail. As we are driven, on dark nights, before these furious winds, we have only to imitate the Cape Horn navigator—‘tie all fast, and let her rip,’ iceberg or no iceberg. When a ship is running at a speed of twelve or fourteen knots, in such thick weather that the look-out at the cat-head can scarcely see his own nose, neither sharp eyes, nor water thermometers are of much use. ”

“ Imagine what an iceberg must have been in starting from seventy-fifth to eightieth parallel of latitude and floated through all kinds of weather till midsummer, arriving off the coasts of Newfoundland, and then 300 to 500 feet high with seven times its height under water and so large as to take hours and even days or weeks to pass the main mass of ice and its fragments that have sloughed off. ”

“ Now and then one broke and fell apart before our eyes, sending up a funnel-shaped spray of color,—rose, pale green, or azure.
At every blast of the steamer's whistle great masses of ice came thundering headlong into the sea—to emerge presently, icebergs. Canoeists approach glaciers closely at their peril, never knowing when an iceberg may shoot to the surface and wreck their boat. Even larger craft are by no means safe, and tourists desiring a close approach should voyage with intrepid captains who sail safely through everything. ”

“ It is difficult for the imagination to conceive of the great magnitude of some of these Greenland icebergs; and yet, as we have seen, they are but comparatively trifling pieces, torn by the sea from glaciers. The iceberg is indeed as the paring of a finger-nail to the whole body, when compared to the quantity of ice in the reservoir from which it came. Magnify the bit of ice in your tumbler until it becomes to your imagination half a mile in diameter each way, and you have a mass that is far from uncommon. ”

“ If we may judge from all descriptions, the lofty spires and glittering sides of an iceberg furnish a spectacle sublime and terrible. The vast ice fields of the North, in spite of all their desolation, possess a mysterious charm. ”

“ When, like thoughtless children, they had played themselves weary, the old alabaster of Greenland mercifully suffered them to gather up their toys, and go down to their cockle of a boat, and flee away. As if the time and the distance were measured, he waited until they could see it and live, when, as if his heart had been volcanic fire, he burst with awful thunders, and filled the surrounding waters with his ruins. A more astonished little party seldom comes home to tell the story of their panic. It was their first, and their last day of amusement with an iceberg. ”

“ If the base of the iceberg, extending far down into the depths of the ocean, should strike some projecting mountain peak of the deep, or a plateau, the berg was liable to overturn, with an appalling rush, beyond the power of mind to conceive. ”

“ It is a strange spectacle to see one of them moving resistlessly against the current, which is sometimes dashed from the corrugated front, as is seen at the bow of a steamboat, but the reason is simple. Nearly seven-eighths of an iceberg is under water, extending so far down that most of the bulk is often within the embrace of the counter current below. ”

“ It has been said that drowning men will clutch at straws. This may, or may not, be true, but certain it is that to Billy Raynor, almost exhausted by his long fight in the chilly water, the iceberg appeared a haven of refuge. Like most of such huge ice structures it was very irregular in shape. ”

“ Nothing could exceed the melancholy monotony of the hours which we passed in the midst of a fog so thick that the wind could not lift its curtain. The position of the iceberg could not be ascertained. It went with the current at a like speed, and had it been motionless there would have been no appreciable difference for us, for the wind had fallen—at least, so we supposed—and not a breath was stirring. ”

“ We came in sight of it one day about sunset, just after a shower. The cloud, which was very large and black, had passed off into the west, and there was a splendid rainbow upon it. It happened, too, that when we were nearest to the iceberg it lay toward the west, and, of course, toward the cloud, and it appeared directly under the rainbow, and the iceberg and the rainbow made a most magnificent spectacle. The iceberg, which was very bright and dazzling in the evening sun, looked like an enormous diamond, with the rainbow for the setting. ”

“ Whatever may be the latent heat of ice, is a question for the professed naturalist. Two things are evident to the unlearned observer: an iceberg is as solid as ivory, or marble from the lowest depths of a quarry, and cold apparently as any substance on the earth can be made. This compact and perfectly frozen body, immersed in the warm seas of summer, and warmer atmosphere, finds its entire outside, and especially that portion of it which is exposed to the July sun, expanding under the influence of the penetrating heat. ”

“ Towards evening, we passed another iceberg. It had a complete chain of floating fragments on the lee-side of it, through which we butted our way. We continued to run in for the land, all night, with a fair wind, although it was a very thick fog, and there were numberless icebergs in all directions ”

“ A big iceberg had been sighted by a freight steamer. Latitude and longitude were given, and the Meteor was soon tearing through the water in quest of the menace to life and property.
“How long will it take us to sight the iceberg?” inquired Bob.
“We’ll probably reach it sometime tomorrow morning,” answered Johnson. “Why are you so anxious to see your first iceberg?”
“Not so much to see the iceberg, as to see it blown up,” replied Bob. “It must be a sight worth watching.”
“The real excitement,” affirmed Johnson, “is in boarding the iceberg and setting the charge. ”

“ It was a contrast to much that we had lately seen, and a spectacle not only of beauty, but of life; for it required but little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which had broken loose from the ``thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,'' and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone, and some in fleets, to milder climes. No pencil has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. ”