ank were placed in the broadest part of the vessel, opposite to each
other, and the spars were wedged in carefully, extending from side to
side, so as to form a great additional support to the regular construction
of the schooner. In little more than an hour, Roswell had his task
accomplished, while Daggett did not see that he could achieve much more
himself. They met on the ice to consult, and to survey the condition of
things around them.

The outer field had been steadily encroaching upon the inner, breaking the
edges of both, until the points of junction were to be traced by a long
line of fragments forced upward, and piled high in the air. Open spaces,
however, still existed, owing to irregularities in the outlines of the two
floes; and Daggett hoped that the little bay into which he had got his
schooner might not be entirely closed, ere a shift of wind, or a change in
the tides, might carry away the causes of the tremendous pressure that
menaced his security. It is not easy for those who are accustomed to look
at natural objects in their more familiar aspects, fully to appreciate the
vast momentum of the weight that was now drifting slowly down upon the
schooner. The only ray of hope was to be found in the deficiency in one
of the two great requisites of such a force. Momentum being _weight_,
multiplied into _velocity_, there were some glimpses visible, of a nature
to produce a slight degree of expectation that the last might yet be
resisted. The movement was slow, but it was absolutely grand, by its
steadiness and power. Any one who has ever stood on a lake or river shore,
and beheld the undeviating force with which a small cake of ice crumbles
and advances before a breeze, or in a current, may form some idea of the
majesty of the movement of a field of leagues in diameter, and which was
borne upon by a gale of the ocean, as well as by currents, and by the
weight of drifting ice-bergs from without. It is true that the impetus
came principally from a great distance, and could scarcely be detected or
observed by those around the schooner; still, these last were fully aware
of the whole character of the danger, which each minute appeared to render
more and more imminent and imposing. The two fields were obviously closing
still, and that with a resistless power that boded destruction to the
unfortunate vessel. The open water near her was already narrowed to a
space that half an hour might suffice to close entirely.