hopeless and helpless than before; but, at midnight, the snow, which had been falling thickly for several hours, cleared away, as the wind suddenly shifted to the westward, and the swell began to subside; and although the shocks our ships still sustained were such that must have destroyed any ordinary vessel in less than five minutes, yet they were feeble compared to those to which we had been exposed, and our minds became more at ease for their ultimate safety.

During the darkness of night and the thick weather, we had been carried through a chain of bergs which were seen in the morning considerably to windward, and which served to keep off the heavy pressure of the pack, so that we found the ice much more open, and I was enabled to make my way, in one of our boats, to the Terror, about whose condition I was most anxious—­for I was aware that her damages were of a much more serious nature than those of the Erebus, notwithstanding the skillful and seaman-like manner in which she had been managed, and by which she maintained her appointed station throughout the gale.  I found that her rudder was completely broken to pieces, and the fastenings to the stern-post so much strained and twisted, that it would be difficult to get the spare rudder, with which we were fortunately provided, fitted so as to be useful, and could only be done, if at all, under very favorable circumstances.  The other damages she had sustained were of less consequence; and it was as great a satisfaction as it has ever since been a source of astonishment to us to find that, after so many hours of constant and violent thumping, both the vessels were nearly as tight as they were before the gale.  We can only ascribe this to the admirable manner in which they had been fortified for the service, and to our having their holds so stowed as to form a solid mass throughout.

FALL OF THE ROSSBERG.

The summer of 1806 had been very rainy; and on the first and second of September it rained incessantly.  New crevices were observed in the flank of the mountain; a sort of cracking noise was heard internally; stones started out of the ground; detached fragments of rocks rolled down the mountain.  At two o’clock in the afternoon, on the 2d of September, a large rock became loose, and in falling, raised a cloud of black dust.  Toward the lower part of the mountain, the ground seemed pressed down from above; and, when a stick or a spade was driven in, it moved of itself.  A man who had been digging in his garden ran away, from fright at these extraordinary appearances; soon a fissure, larger than all the others, was observed; insensibly, it increased:  springs of water ceased all at once to flow, the pine trees of the forest absolutely reeled; the birds flew away screaming.  A few minutes before five o’clock, the symptoms of some mighty catastrophe became still stronger; the whole surface of the mountain seemed to glide down,