This entry contains remarks related to the following subjects: Aurora Sea Ice

Published Journals of George W. DeLong

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A day of great anxiety. At 6.10 a.m. I was awakened by the trembling and creaking of the ship, 
and almost immediately the man on watch came in my room to inform me that the ice was again in 
motion. Hastily tumbling out and dressing I went out on the ice. The grinding and crushing flow of ice to 
the westward had again commenced, and the jamming of large pieces from time to time, splintering our 
floe, caused breaks and upheavals to within about seventy-five feet of the ship. The ship groaned and 
creaked at every pressure until I thought the next would break her adrift. The pressure was tremendous, 
and the noise was not calculated to calm one's mind. I know of no sound on shore that can be compared 
to it. A rumble, a shriek, a groan, and a crash of a falling house all combined might serve to convey an 
idea of the noise with which this motion of ice-floes is accompanied. Great masses, from fifteen to 
twenty-five feet in height when up-ended, are sliding along at various angles of elevation and jam, and 
between and among them are large and confused masses of debris, like a marble yard adrift. 
Occasionally, a stoppage occurs; some piece has caught against or under our floe; then occurs a 
groaning and cracking; our floe bends and humps up in places like domes. Crash ! the dome splits, 
another yard of floe edge breaks off, the pressure is relieved, and on goes again the flowing mass of 
rumbles, shrieks, groans, etc., for another spell. 
Our performance lasted only for half an hour this time. At its conclusion I was startled to find that a break 
had occurred in the floe across the bows of the ship running towards the southwest, and that a 
projecting floeberg was plowing its way like a wedge to break up the floe ahead of us and make a 
junction with the old stream. In this case we should be in the centre of an island, small at that, whose 
edges would be worn away on all sides until we were left alone to be hurried along in the race. At 4.20 
p.m. the excitement began again, and this time we had it heavily for four hours. I fully made up my mind 
that we must go adrift. Hurriedly we broke up our temporary observatory near the ship and took the 
instruments on board, suspending our meteorological record while graver matters required our attention. 
Everything movable was brought in, and finally the dogs were with great difficulty collected and brought 
on board ship, a proceeding which they did not like, and which they resented by jumping over the rail on 
the ice again, until we boarded it up so high they could not clear it, and then they relieved their minds by 
fights among themselves. 
This movement of the ice begins to make me believe it is a tidal action of some kind, although it 
flows in but one way - to the westward. Fearing another rush during the night, I ordered 
everybody to hold himself in readiness for immediate action, sleeping myself with my clothes on 
and knapsack handy in case of accident.

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Jeannette Ship's Journal

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