CHAPTER VIII.THE BIRTH OF AN ICEBERG.
I canimagine no more grand and imposing spectacle than the birth of an iceberg; and we have now, I think, gone far enough in the examination of glaciers and their movements to contemplate such a spectacle, which, whatever it may seem to the reader, was to me most thrilling. It did not happen in connection with thePanther, and may at first, therefore, seem to be a little out of place; but as it serves my purpose, I make free to use it, by way of illustration.
The scene was in a fiord ten times wider than that of Sermitsialik, though not much longer. Unlike that of Sermitsialik, it was studded with islands and shoal places. The glacier which terminated it was twenty miles across, although not quite uniformly; for the ice had poured down into the sea, and, while having blotted out some of the islands, it had barely touched others; otherwise the coast-line of ice was perfect and continuous. The islands and shoal places in the fiord arrest the icebergs; and within ten miles or more of the glacier it is almost impossible to go. With great difficulty I came within five, in a boat. Farther I could not force my way by any possibility; and, accordingly, we made the land and climbed a lofty hill for a view.
The fiord which I thus describe is known as the fiord of Aukpadlartok, a native word signifying “the place of the red rocks.” I had gone up the fiord from Upernavik to the hut of a hunter, who was the bestyrere of asmall settlement of that name belonging to the Upernavik district.
It was a grand spectacle that met my eye as I stood upon the hill-top overlooking the fiord, with its thousands of icebergs, its dark rocky islands, and the immense quantity of loose ice which filled up the space between the bergs and islands, until there was scarcely a patch of water to be seen anywhere as large as a good-sized duck-pond. Very different from the fiord of Sermitsialik, where there were no islands nor shoals to arrest the ice in its progress down the fiord.
I was accompanied by the bestyrere of Aukpadlartok, whose name was Philip. We stood together looking at the glacier and the great sea of ice which stretched away into the interior, blending mountains and valleys into a vast plain, when Philip said, “Listen! the glacier is going to ‘calve;’” for that is the name by which they distinguish the breaking off of a fragment.
I heard a loud report, but I could not at once distinguish the source of it. An instant afterward it was repeated, now louder than before. It resembled the first warning sound of a coming earthquake.
Philip had detected the spot whence the sound proceeded, and said, “Look! it is rising.”
I could now see that a portion of the glacier was being lifted by the water. A great wave was rolled back with this upward movement, and dashed fiercely against the icebergs that lay farther down the fiord. Another instant, and the sound, which was before so deep and loud, broke through the air with a crash that was like the discharge of heavy artillery near at hand. I knew now that a crack had opened in the ice-stream, and that a mass had been disengaged.
The position of the crack was quickly apparent, and wecould see that a fragment of enormous proportions had been set at liberty. It first reared itself aloft as if it were some huge leviathan of the deep indued with life, and was sporting its unwieldy bulk in the hitherto undisturbed waters. The crack had now opened wide. The detached fragment plunged forward; the front, which had been rising, then sunk down, while the inner side rose up, and volumes of water that had been lifted with the sudden motion poured from its sides, hissing, into the foaming and agitated sea.
Thus an iceberg had been born.
It would be impossible with mere words alone to convey any adequate idea of the action of this new-born child of the Arctic frosts. Think of a solid lump of ice, a third of a mile deep, and more than half a mile in lateral diameter, hurled like a mere toy away into the water and set to rolling to and fro by the impetus of the act—as if it were Nature’s merest foot-ball—now down one side, until the huge bulk was nearly capsized; then back again; then down the other side once more, with the same unresisting force; and so on, up and down, and down and up, swashing to and fro for hours before it comes finally to rest. Picture this, and you will have an image of power not to be seen by the action of any other forces upon the earth.
The disturbance of the water was inconceivably fine. Waves of enormous magnitude were rolled up with great violence against the glacier, covering it with spray; and billows came tearing down the fiord, their progress marked by the crackling and crumbling ice, which was everywhere in a state of wildest agitation for the space of several miles. Over the smaller icebergs the water broke completely, as if a tempest were piling up the seas and heaving them fiercely against the shore. Then, to add still further to the commotion thus occasioned, the great wallowingiceberg, which was the cause of it all, was dropping fragments from its sides with each oscillation, the reports of the rupture reaching the ear above the general din and clamor. Other bergs were set in motion by the waves, and these also dropped pieces from their sides; and at last, as if it were the grandfinaleof the piece—the clash of cymbals and the big bass-drum of nature’s grand orchestra—a monstrous berg near the middle of the fiord split in two, and, above the sound of breaking waters and falling ice, this last disruption filled the air with a peal that rang among the bergs and crags, and, echoing from hill to hill, died away only in the void beyond the mountain-tops; while to the noisy tune the icebergs of the fiord danced their wild ungainly dance upon the waters.
It was many hours before this state of wild unrest was succeeded by the calm which had preceded the commencement of it; and when at length the iceberg that had been born came quietly to rest, and the other icebergs had ceased their dance upon the troubled sea, and the waves had ceased their lashings, it seemed to me that, in beholding this birth of an iceberg, I had beheld one of the most sublime exhibitions of the great forces of nature. It was in truth a convulsion.