IMMENSE FIELDS OF ICE.
A STEAMER SURROUNDED AND COMPELLED TO WORK HER WAY OUT.
Montreal, May 22.—The steamer Fremona, from New Castle, which arrived here yesterday, had a very startling experience with the ice about 150 miles on the other side of Cape Ray. The vessel was steaming slowly through a dense fog on Wednesday last, when she got right in the midst of a pack of ice, which was drifting southward with the Arctic current. After the steamer had been pounding about in the ice for some hours the fog lifted and showed the vessel to be in a dangerous position. All around her were heavy hummocks of ice, ten feet deep in the water and showing about a foot above the surface. Gradually nearing the steamer and crushing the smaller pieces of ice in their way were a number of huge icebergs. The captain and chief officer climbed to the masthead and found that the ice extended on all sides as far as the eye could see. There were hundreds of seals on the ice, some of them being close to the vessel. Two hours were spent in turning the steamer, and she was then headed southward and was worked out of the ice. Owing to the movement of such a large mass of ice southward it is feared that navigation will be seriously interfered with.
News from the whalers in the Antarctic Seas on February 17 was that up to that time the whaling had proved a failure, with all the ships that made the venture. There were plenty of whales of the finner and humpback kind, but none of the Greenland kind. Grampuses were too plentiful. Seals were very numerous, and there were also plenty of sea lions. Some icebergs of enormous size were seen; one was fifty miles long and several were from fifteen to twenty.
In the Antarctic Ocean the icebergs that have been noticed from time to time rose 400, 580, 700 and even 1,000 feet above the water, and were from three to five miles long. Their enormous bulk may be inferred from the fact that the part under water is about seven times as large as that above.