Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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Crossing the Antarctic Circle, they were soon among the icebergs, keeping a sharp look-out for Termination Land, which has been marked on charts as a good stretch of coast seen by Wilkes, of the American expedition, thirty years before. To make a long story short, Captain Nares, after a careful search, un-discovered this discovery, finding no traces of the land. It was probably a long stretch of ice, or possibly a mirage, which phenomenon has deceived many a sailor before. John Ross once thought that he had discovered some grand mountains in the Arctic regions, which he named after the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Croker. Next year Parry sailed over the site of the supposed range; and the “Croker” Mountains became a standing joke against Ross.

“THE CHALLENGER” IN ANTARCTIC ICE.

Icebergs of enormous size were encountered; several of three miles in length and two hundred feet or more in height were seen one day, all close together. But bergs of this calibre were exceptional; they were, however, very often over half a mile in length. “There are few people now alive,” says the author we have recently quoted, “who have seen such superb Antarctic iceberg scenery as we have. We are steaming towards the supposed position of land, only some thirty miles distant, over a glass-like sea, unruffled by a breath of wind; past great masses of ice, grouped so close together in some cases as to form an unbroken wall of cliff several miles in length. Then, as we pass within a few hundred yards, the chain breaks up into two or three separate bergs, and one sees—and beautifully from the mast-head—the blue sea and distant horizon between perpendicular walls of glistening alabaster white, against which the long swell dashes, rearing up in great blue-green heaps, falling back in a torrent of rainbow-flashing spray, or goes roaring into the azure caverns, followed immediately by a thundering thud, as the compressed air within buffets it back again in a torrent of seething white foam.” Neither words adequately describe the beauty of many of the icebergs seen. One had three high arched caverns penetrating far to its interior; another had a large tunnel through which they could see the horizon. The delicate colouring of these bergs is most lovely—sweeps of azure blue and pale sea-green with dazzling white; glittering, sparkling crystal merging into depths of indigo blue; stalactite icicles hanging from the walls and roofs of cavernous openings. The reader will imagine the beauty of the scene at sunrise and sunset, when as many as eighty or ninety bergs were sometimes in sight. The sea was intensely green from the presence of minute algæ, through belts of which the vessel passed, while the sun, sinking in a golden blaze, tipped and lighted up the ice and snow, making them sparkle as with brightest gems. A large number of tabular icebergs, with quantities of snow on their level tops, were met. They amused themselves by firing a 9-pounder Armstrong at one, which brought the ice down with a rattling crash, the face of the berg cracking, splitting, and splashing down with a roar, making the water below white with foam and powdered ice. These icebergs were all stratified, at more or less regular distances, with blue lines, which before they capsized or canted from displacement of their centres of gravity, were always horizontal. During a gale, the Challenger came into collision with a berg, and lost her jibboom, “dolphin-striker,” and other head-gear. An iceberg in a fog or gale of wind is not a desirable obstruction to meet at sea.