"The words had no sooner left my lips, than a piercing cold wind caused me to cast my eye upon the thermometer. In the new regime of science the mercury was descending rapidly; but in a moment the instrument was obscured by a blinding fall of snow. Towering ice bergs rose from the water on every side, hanging their jagged masses hundreds of feet above the masthead, and shutting us completely in. The ship twisted and writhed; her decks bulged upward, and every timber groaned and cracked like the report of a pistol. The Camel was frozen fast. The jerk of her sudden stopping snapped the bul lock's chain, and sent both that animal and the Dutchman over the bows, to accomplish their warfare on the ice."

For a story by Ambrose Bierce
Esquire Russia