ith which they
cut through the rotten stuff around our position, I already foresaw a
fresh era in arctic history, and that the fine bows would soon beat the
antediluvian "bluffs" out of the field.

_Thursday, 27th June, 1850_, found us still cruising about under
canvas; northward and westward a body of dirty ice, fast decaying under
a fierce sunlight, bergs in hundreds in every direction; and, dotted
along the Greenland shore, a number of whalers fast in what is called
"Land water," ready to take the first opening. The barometer falling,
we were ordered to make fast to icebergs, every one choosing his own.
This operation is a very useful one in arctic regions, and saves much
unnecessary wear and tear of men and vessel, when progress in the
required direction is no longer possible.

The bergs, from their enormous depth, are usually aground, except at
spring-tides, and the seaman thus succeeds in anchoring his vessel in
200 fm. water, without any other trouble than digging a hole in the
iceberg, placing an anchor in it called an ice-anchor, which one man
can lift, and, with a whale-line, his ship rides out under the lee of
this natural breakwater, in severe gales, and often escapes being beset
in a lee pack.

[Illustration]

Fastening to a berg has its risks and dangers; sometimes the first
stroke of the man setting the ice-anchor, by its concussion causes the
iceberg to break up, and the people so employed run great risk of being
injured; at another time, vessels obliged to make fast under the steep
side of a berg, have had pieces detach themselves from overhead, and
injure materially the vessel and spars; and, again, the projecting
masses, called tongues (which form under water the base of the berg),
have been known to break off, and strike a vessel so severely as to
sink her: all these risks are duly detailed by every arctic navigator,
and the object always is, in fastening to an iceberg, to look for a
side which is low and sloping, without any tongues under water. To such
an one the Intrepid and Pioneer made fast, although the boat's crew
that first reached it, in making a hole, were wetted by a projecting
mass detaching itself with the first blow of the seaman's crowbar. A
gale sprang up almost immediately, and during the night the Assistance
blew adrift. Next day it abated, and the ice to the northward looked
open.

In the evening one of Penny's vessels, the Sophia, joined us, and from
her commander we soon