Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/67

Rh the storm increases we have a formidable "body of ice" many miles in width as well as breadth. This pack drives on and on, resistless and all-conquering, until it is checked in its steady career by meeting another solid pack, or by the land, or, in the Antarctic, by one of those giant bergs. Confusion arises; the ice piles itself high up on the land—great heaps of even 20 or 30 feet high being formed. Here it may remain for many a year before it is finally dissipated. I have seen this occur more than once. If it is driven against the vertical cliff of an Antarctic berg or against the face of a barrier like the Ross Barrier, it will curl up the face of the cliff and fall back again upon itself in a confused heap. If a ship is between it and the land, the ship will be hurled ashore and no human effort can do anything to avert such a disaster. This has frequently happened. In recent times, the Alert was driven ashore with the pack at Rawlings Bay in Kennedy Channel, in 1876, and the Stella Polaris at Teplitz Bay, in Franz Josef Land, in 1899.

A ship may be lying against a floe, perhaps fastened to a land floe, when the pack drives down upon it and it is caught; or, more deadly still, between two floes, when the pack drives down upon the outer one, drives it on, and the ship is crushed to matchwood between