My rest was cut short by a shock so violent that, before I realized that anything _had_ happened, I found myself on deck--a deck that inclined to starboard some twelve or fifteen degrees.

I ran, or rather climbed the deck, to the port side and saw what had happened.

A big floe, rushing past with the current, had picked up the grounded berg to which we were attached by the hawsers, as if that thousand-ton berg had been a toy, and dashed it against the _Roosevelt_ and clear along her port side, smashing a big hole in the bulwarks at Marvin's room.

The berg brought up against another one just aft of us, and the _Roosevelt_ slipped from between the two like a greased pig.
As soon as the pressure was relaxed and the ship regained an even keel, we discovered that the cable which had been attached to the floe-berg at the stern had become entangled with the propeller.

It was a time for lightning thought and action; but by attaching a heavier cable to the parted one and taking a hitch round the steam capstan, we finally disentangled it.
This excitement was no sooner over than a great berg that was passing near us split in two of its own accord, a cube some twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter dropping toward the ship, and missing our quarter by only a foot or two.