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Entered according to Act of Congress, in J une, 1867, by J. W. Burke & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia.
Vol. I.
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
the regions oe ice and snow.
OST of our little readers
have but a faint idea of
the masses of ice and
snow which are to be
* found in that part of the
rmk world in the vicinity of the
North Pole. They have
Jnpj read about the frozen re
gions in books of travel and
adventure, and some few of them
may have heard of them from per
sons who have navigated the Polar
Seas, but it is difficult for us at the
South to realize the actual condi
tion of things.
We give with this sketch, a pic
ture of an iceberg: a large mass
of ice, which is floating down from
the north after the long winter is
over. Sometimes a number of
these icebergs float together, and
if a ship comes in contact with
them, they press with such force
against it as to crush it and some
times cause it to sink. On June
25th, 1859, a vessel, called the
Kitty, left London, having on
board a stock of warm clothing
for the Indians, two thousand
copies of the New Testament, and
a number of prayer books in the ( ree
language. In addition to these, there
was on board a large supply of provisions
for the use of the missionaries during the
following year. On the night of August
12th the Kitty became entangled in some
icebergs, and, after several days, the sail
ors, finding that there was no hope ol
saving the ship, were obliged to leave the
precious freight, and to escape for their
lives in a small boat. The vessel shortly
after sank, and for sixty-three days the
sailors were exposed to the most severe
hardships, but just as their stock of pro-
MACONL G-A., ATJGrTJST 31, 1867.
visions was exhausted, and they began to
fear that they must die of hunger before
another day was over, they found that
they were close to the coast of Labrador.
They were seen by some Christian Es
quimaux, and brought to shore, and even
tually returned to England.
Dr. Hayes, of Boston, left that city in
July, 1860, in a small schooner which he
called the United States, on a voyage of
discovery towards the North Pole. He
had been on a former voyage with the
late I)r. Kane. Since his return from his
last expedition, he has published a narra
tive of his adventures and discoveries,
and his book — The Open Polar Sea —is
one of deep and thrilling interest. He
spent a little more than twelve months
in this region of snow and ice, enduring
almost incredible hardships and priva
tions.
He encountered his first iceberg the
day before he passed the Arctic circle.
“ The dead white mass broke upon us,”
he says, “ out of a dense fog, and was
mistaken by the look-out for land when
he first caught the sound of the breakers
beating upon it. It was floating directly
in our course, but we had time enough to
clear it. Its form was that of an irregu
lar pyramid, about three hundred
feet at its base, and perhaps half
as hiffh. Its summit was at first
obscured, but at length the mist
broke away, disclosing the peak of
a glittering spire, around which
the -white clouds were curling and
dancing in the sunlight. There
was something very impressive in
the stern indifference with which
it received the lashings of the sea.
The waves threw their liquid arms
about it caressingly, hut it deigned
not even a nod of recognition, and
sent them reeling backward, moan
ing and lamenting.”
Dr. Hayes saw many icebergs
of immense size, and of every pos
sible form. He was in frequent
danger of having his vessel crush
ed by vast masses of ice, which,
detached from the surrounding
bergs, were constantly falling
around him. At one time he
counted more than five hundred of
these immense bodies of floating ice in
sight from a single point. One enormous
iceberg, encountered on the coast of
Greenland, was threte hundred and fifteen
feet high, and a fraction over three-quar
ters of a mile long. Estimating that at
least seven-eighths of it were under wa
ter. Dr. Hayes made a calculation that
its cubical contents were twenty-seven
thousand millions of feet, and its weight
about two thousand millions of tons.
——-
Have the courage to obey your Maker
at the risk of being ridiculed by man.
No. 9