Captain Parry was once witness of that sublime spectacle, which, though of frequent occurrence, is seldom seen by human eyes, the entire dissolution of an enormous iceberg.
Its huge size and massiveness had been specially remarked, and men thought that it might well resist “a century of sun and thaw.” It looked as large as Westminster Abbey. All on board Captain Parry’s ship described as a most wonderful spectacle this iceberg, without any warning, completely breaking up. The sea around it became a seething caldron, from the violent plunging of the masses, as they broke and re-broke in a thousand pieces. The floes, torn up for a distance of two miles around it, by the violent action of the rolling waters, threatened, from the agitation of the ice, to destroy any vessel that had been amongst them; and Captain Parry and his crew congratulated themselves that they were sufficiently far from the scene to witness its sublimity without being involved in its danger.
ICEBERG AND ICE-FIELD, MELVILLE BAY, GREENLAND
Icebergs chiefly abound in Baffin Bay, and in the gulfs and inlets connected with it. They are particularly numerous in the great indentation known as Melville Bay, the whole interior of the country bordering upon it being the seat of immense glaciers, and these are constantly “shedding off” icebergs of the largest dimensions. The greater bulk of these is, as we have explained, below the water-line; and the consequent depth to which they sink when floating subjects them to the action of the deeper ocean-currents, while their broad surface above the water is, of course, acted on by the wind. It happens, therefore, as Dr. Kane remarks, that they are found not infrequently moving in different directions from the floes around them, and preventing them for a time from freezing into a united mass. Still, in the late winter, when the cold has thoroughly set in, Melville Bay becomes a continuous mass of ice, from Cape York to the Devil’s Thumb. At other times, this region justifies the name the whalers have bestowed upon it of “Bergy Hole.”
Captain Beechey, in his voyage with Buchan, in 1818, had an opportunity of witnessing the formation of a “berg,” or rather of two of these immense masses. In Magdalena Bay he had taken the ship’s launch near the shore to examine a magnificent glacier, when the discharge of a gun caused an instantaneous disruption of its bulk. A noise resembling thunder was heard in the direction of the glacier, and in a few seconds more an immense piece broke away, and fell headlong into the sea. The crew of the launch, supposing themselves beyond the reach of its influence, quietly looked upon the scene, when a sea arose and rolled towards the shore with such rapidity that the boat was washed upon the beach and filled. As soon as their astonishment had subsided, they examined the boat, and found her so badly stove that it was necessary to repair her before they could return to their ship. They had also the curiosity to measure the distance the boat had been carried by the wave, and ascertained that it was ninety-six feet.
A short time afterwards, when Captain Beechey and Lieutenant Franklin had approached one of these stupendous walls of ice, and were endeavouring to search into the innermost recess of a deep cavern that lay near the foot of the glacier, they suddenly heard a report, as of a cannon, and turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, perceived an immense section of the front of the glacier sliding down from the height of two hundred feet at least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and followed by an outflow of water, which, being previously lodged in the fissures, now made its escape in innumerable tiny flashing rills and cataracts.
The mass thus disengaged at first disappeared wholly under water, and nothing could be seen but a violent seething of the sea, and the ascent of clouds of glittering spray, such as that which occurs at the foot of a great waterfall. But after a short time it reappeared, raising its head fully a hundred feet above the surface, with water streaming down on every side; and then labouring, as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over, rocked to and fro for a few minutes, and finally became settled.
On approaching and measuring it, Beechey found it to be nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference, and sixty feet out of the water. Knowing its specific gravity, and making a fair allowance for its inequalities, he computed its weight at 421,660 tons.
In Parry’s first voyage he passed in one day fifty icebergs of large dimensions, just after crossing the Arctic Circle; and on the following day a still more extended chain of ice-peaks of still larger size, against which a heavy southerly swell was violently driven, dashing the loose ice with tremendous force, sometimes flinging a white spray over them to the height of more than one hundred feet, and accompanied by a loud noise “exactly resembling the roar of distant thunder.”