Disasters among foreign ships at the sealing in the Arctic

"There were some terrible disasters amongst foreign ships during the sealing, and the Orion discovered 70 men frozen dead upon the ice, the crews of a foreign barque and brig, which had been wrecked. These men were all upon one piece of ice, and as they had died the survivors had piled up the bodies to make a breakwater on the weather side of the ice to prevent the sea from breaking over them. In this way a solid wall of dead men, cemented together by the frost, was made, behind which only two or three men were found to be still living.

The three Hull brigs, Germanica, Hebe and Violet, were all stove in and wrecked in the ice this year at the sealing. The Violet previously rescued a Dane, who was found on a piece of ice with a piggin hoisted on a boat hook as a distress signal beside him. He was found on his hands and knees, almost frozen stiff and unable to speak, whilst laid out alongside him, were five dead shipmates. These man had lost their ship in a gale. The surgeon was compelled to amputate both the Dane's legs, but he only lived for another six weeks." (p. 360)

From The Arctic Whales by Basil Lubbock