Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/50

46 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