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

Published Journals of George W. DeLong

See full digitized page provided by the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Excerpt:

At 4.15 a.m. Mr. Newcomb, who sat up until this hour, roused me with the information that 
the ice was again in motion. Rushed out on deck and found that we were in for a lively time. The 
pressure was greater than ever before in our experience. To the ice rushing and growling alongside 
of us I did not pay much attention, for though our floe humped badly, and cracked and split in all 
directions, there was not much obstruction to the flow of ice. But the break in the floe across the 
bows gave me serious concern, for I saw the piled-up ice advancing toward us seemingly as fast as 
a man could walk. Abandoning the line of union which it yesterday tried to make diagonally across 
the bow to the flowing stream on the port quarter, it bore down directly upon us. At each grind of 
the advancing mass it piled up floebergs in front of it, and the ship shook and trembled like a reed. 
From my post on top of the deck-house the view was magnificent though awful. I fully expected we 
should be swept away into the grinding stream, and as the approaching ice made one more 
startling advance than usual, I grasped the mainstay to keep ray place when the final crash should 
come. All hands had been called and stood ready, although there was really nothing to be done. 
When at 6.25 the advancing wall was twenty-five feet from the stem, the pressure suddenly 
ceased, and everything was quiet again. At seven the first signs of dawn made their appearance, 
and as the increasing daylight made objects evident to our eyes, it was a startling spectacle to see 
the confused wreck that had been made of our once smooth floe.

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Jeannette Ship's Journal

See digitized manuscript page provided by NOAA PMEL.