Nineteen of the ship's company were landed on the floe to carry the material away from its edge to a place of comparative safety.

The peril seemed so imminent that the men in their panic performed prodigious feats of strength--lifting and handling alone huge boxes, which at ordinary times, would stagger two men.

A driving, whirling snowstorm added to the gloom, confusion, and terror of the scene, shutting out almost completely those on the ice from the view of those still on the ship.

In the midst of the work the cry was raised that the floes were parting, and with incredible rapidity the ice broke away from the ship on every side, so that communication between those on deck and those on the floe was instantly cut off by a broad interval of black and tossing water, while the dark and snow-laden air cut off vision on every side.

The cries of those on the ice mingled with those from the fast vanishing ship, for each party thought itself in the more desperate case.
The ice was fast going to pieces, and boats were plying in the lanes of water thus opened, picking up those clinging to smaller cakes of ice and transporting them to the main floe.