s and openings--gaining in these latter a furious velocity, to
which everything seemed to yield.

"It happened that there were several of these around the ship; and when
they opened on us like so many conduits pouring their contents to a
common centre, the concussion was absolutely appalling, rending the
lining and bulkheads in every part, loosening some shores and
stanchions, so that the slightest effort would have thrown them down,
and compressing others with such force as to make the turpentine ooze
out of their extremities. One fir plank, placed horizontally between
the beams and the shores actually glittered with globules. At the same
time the pressure was going on from the larboard side, where the three
heaviest parts of the ruin of the floe remained, cracked here and there,
but yet adhering in firm and solid bodies. These, of course, were
irresistible; and after much groaning, splitting, and cracking,
accompanied by sounds like the explosion of cannon, the ship rose fore
and aft, and heeled over about ten degrees to starboard."

Again, on the 11th, Back says: "At this time she showed symptoms of
suffering in the hull, which was evidently undergoing a severe ordeal.
Inexplicable noises, in which the sharp sounds of splitting and the
harsher ones of grinding were most distinct, came in quick succession,
and then again stopped suddenly, leaving all so still that not even a
breath was heard.

"In an instant the ship was felt to rise under our feet, and the roaring
and rushing commenced with a deafening din alongside, abeam and astern,
at one and the same instant. Alongside, the grinding masses held the
ship tight as in a vice; while the overwhelming pressure of the entire
body, advancing from the west, so wedged the stern and starboard
quarter, that the greatest apprehensions were entertained for the
stern-post and framework abaft.

"Some idea of the power exerted on this occasion may be gathered from
this:--At the moment which I am now describing, the fore-part of the
ship was literally buried as high as the flukes of the anchors in a dock
of perpendicular walls of ice; so that, in that part, she might well
have been thought immovable. Still, such was the force applied to her
abaft, that after much cracking and perceptible yielding of the beams,
which seemed to curve upwards, she actually rose by sheer pressure above
the dock forward; and then, with sudden jerks, did the same abaft.
During these convulsions