Polar Exploration. William Speirs Bruce

surface as regards level. From the information we have at hand, it is very difficult to assert with certainty that the altitude of the Ross Barrier, when it emerges into the Ross Sea, is exactly the same as it is in 84° S., in the vicinity of the Beardmore Glacier.

      It can be imagined that bergs of almost any length might be broken off from such a barrier as the Ross Barrier, and, as a matter of fact, bergs of enormous size have been recorded by many voyagers to the South Seas. Even ​allowing for exaggeration due to difficulty in gauging their length, bergs of several miles in length, up to 20 or 30, certainly do occur. A single glance at the ice chart for the Antarctic Regions published by the Admiralty will confirm this statement. On board the Balæna and the Scotia we saw many bergs at least 4 miles long: on one occasion, on the Balæna, we measured a berg 12 miles long, and on another occasion the Balæna steamed at the rate of 5 knots for 6 hours along the face of a berg, which made the length of it fully 30 miles. Some bergs have been recorded of very much greater height than any I have seen, though the records are doubted by some Antarctic explorers of recent years, but in bad weather and in those tempestuous seas it is easy for such errors to occur, though it may be possible to have bergs considerably more than 150 feet high in the Antarctic if, by weathering, one of these flat-topped bergs should become tilted up on end. These gigantic bergs have at times been described as ice islands, and by the inexperienced mistaken for land.

      There is another class of icebergs in the Antarctic Regions that are rather overlooked and lost sight of by being overshadowed with so large a number of these great flat-topped bergs: these are bergs that are similar in ​every respect to those of the Arctic Regions. They are formed by much smaller and irregular pieces of ice breaking away from the snouts of glaciers similar to those found in Spitsbergen and other Arctic lands. These are only formed in smaller masses of land like the South Orkneys or those parts of the continent where relatively small individual glaciers run directly from the mountains into the sea, as they do at the northern extremity of Graham Land, at the South Orkneys, and several other places.

      The reader should now have a clear conception of what bergs are and how they are formed. He will see that they are a product of the land, and that they are composed entirely of fresh-water ice. They may be likened to great ships, dwarfing the greatest liners and battleships into beggarly insignificance; they sail forth to the open ocean drifted by deeper currents rather than the wind, moving to and fro with the tide; blizzards and stormy seas lashing them, they drive onward with the currents of the sea, checked only by a contrary tide and helped onward by a favourable one; onward they go head to wind and head to sea, it matters little to them! Should some smaller berg be driven against one of these leviathans, it is dashed to pieces against its icy cliffs, only with the sacrifice of a few chips falling off and around its victim; should a ​field of floe ice be driven by the wind against it, the floe is broken into fragments, whilst pack ice divides and passes by on either side. They drive onward and northward all-conquering and resistless, and then venture forth into warmer seas. These seas are the most tempestuous in the world, and the presence of so much ice in water of a higher temperature not only encourages fogs, as does also the variation of the temperature of the air and water, but is exceedingly dangerous to ships navigating there; especially as in these latitudes there are always dark nights of greater or less duration the whole year. But this is the beginning of the end: rotted by the warmer winds and seas, gutted out with caves up which great waves rush in wild confusion into the very bowels of these monsters, the bergs get undermined, turn turtle, and break up into many smaller bergs and thousands of smaller irregular pieces. These irregular chips get still more weathered, and assume most fantastic shapes, and are hard as flint. They are the "growlers" and the "bergy bits" that we have already spoken of.

      Many an iron ship has had its side or bottom ripped out with growlers, and many a wooden ship has had its wooden walls "stove-in" with them, and nothing more has been heard of them or their living human freight. No chance ​for these poor wretches, even if a few managed to scramble wet, cold, and benumbed into a ship's boats. No hand to help, no one to hear their last cry of agony. If this is the power of a "growler," what chance has a helpless sailing-ship driving before a gale with a monster berg on its lee? Her end must be a battering to death against its solid ice cliffs.

      Even with ships specially constructed for ice-navigation, the greatest care has to be exercised. I have seen a relatively small piece weighing hundreds of tons falling off one of these great bergs; a smaller more weather-beaten berg splitting in two; and, on another occasion, a berg turning turtle. In each case a great wave was generated, and had our ship been in too close proximity it would certainly have resulted in serious damage and probable loss of life, if not total destruction. Several Antarctic ships have had narrow escapes when navigating, under force of circumstances, during dark nights in the vicinity of these great bergs; the serious collision of Ross's ships among a chain of bergs during a hard gale on a dark night, was an instance as notable as their miraculous escape. On this terrible night the Erebus was trying to weather a berg when it was observed that the Terror was running down upon her. It was impossible for the Terror to clear both the Erebus ​and the berg; collision was inevitable. Ross graphically describes the incident, and says, "We instantly hove all aback to diminish the violence of the shock; but the concussion when she struck us, was such as to throw almost every one off his feet; our bowsprit, fore-topmast, and other smaller spars, were carried away; and the two ships hanging together, entangled by their rigging, and dashing against each other with fearful violence, were falling down upon the lofty berg under our lee, against which the waves were breaking and foaming to near the summit of its perpendicular cliffs. Sometimes she rose high above us, almost exposing her keel to view, and again descended as we in our turn rose to the top of the wave, threatening to bury her beneath us, whilst the crashing of the breaking upper works and boats increased the horror of the scene. Providentially they gradually forged past each other, and separated before we drifted down amongst the foaming breakers, and we had the gratification of seeing her clear the end of the berg, and of feeling that she was safe. But she left us completely disabled; the wreck of the spars so encumbered the lower yards, that we were unable to make sail, so as to get headway on the ship; nor had we room to wear round, being by this time so close to the berg that the waves, when they struck against it, threw back ​their sprays into the ship. The only way left to us to extricate ourselves from this awful and appalling situation was by resorting to the hazardous expedient of a stern-board, which nothing could justify during such a gale and with so high a sea running, but to avert the danger which every moment threatened us of being dashed to pieces. The heavy rolling of the vessel, and the probability of the masts giving way each time the lower yard-arms struck against the cliffs, which were towering high above our mast-heads, rendered it a service of extreme danger to loose the mainsail; but no sooner was the order given, than the daring spirit of the British seaman manifested itself—the men ran up the rigging with as much alacrity as on any ordinary occasion; and although more than once driven off the yard, they after a short time succeeded in loosing the sail. Amidst the roar of the wind and sea it was difficult both to hear and to execute the orders that were given, so that it was three-quarters of an hour before we could get the yards braced bye, and the maintack hauled on board sharp aback—an expedient that perhaps had never before been resorted to by seamen in such weather: but it had the desired effect; the ship gathered stern-way, plunging her stern into the sea, washing away the gig and quarter boats, and, with her lower ​yard-arms scraping the rugged face of the berg, we in a few minutes reached its western termination; the 'under tow,' as it is called, or the reaction of the water from its vertical cliffs, alone preventing us being driven to atoms against it. No sooner had we cleared it than another was seen directly astern of us, against which we were running; and the difficulty now was to get the ship's head turned round and pointed fairly through between the two bergs, the breadth of the intervening space not exceeding three times her own breadth; this, however, we happily accomplished; and in a few minutes, after getting the wind, she dashed through the narrow channel between two perpendicular walls of ice, and the foaming breakers which stretched across it, and the next minute we were in smooth water under its lee.

      "A cluster of bergs was seen to windward extending as far as the eye could discern, and so closely connected, that, except the small opening by which we had escaped, they appeared to form an unbroken continuous line; it seems, therefore, not at all improbable that the collision with