Fierce, too, are the storms which sweep the Banks in winter. Then the wind is bitter cold, deck and mast and sails are clad in ice, and many a crew are never heard of more. The Georges in fair weather is not dangerous fishing ground, but in a gale it defies both skill and strength. The shallow water is churned into rolling mountain waves which almost sweep the ocean bed. At such times the 125-ton fishing vessels, which usually anchor close together when fishing, are at the mercy of the elements. It is impossible for the anchors to get a firm grip and they are sometimes dragged for miles. This, in fact, is the greatest danger of the business. Not infrequently in a heavy gale two or three vessels will drift together, their cables become tangled until they are unmanageable and in short order vessels and crew will be engulfed. Some years ago thirty schooners, with 150 sailors aboard, were lost in this manner in a single gale on the Georges. Since 1830 nearly 700 fishing vessels sailing from Gloucester have been lost and upward of 2,700 men have perished. The winter of 1882 was one long to be remembered in Gloucester, for in less than two months more than a hundred fishermen were lost on the Banks. One of these was Angus McCloud, than whom no braver man ever found a grave at the ocean's bottom. Three years before he had been on the Banks in the same vessel with his brothers, Malcolm and John McCloud. Among their shipmates were the McDonalds--William, Donald, John and Neal. Their vessel was in the gale of 1879 on the Banks--a gale the like of which had rarely before been experienced by the fleet. Thrown over on its beam ends, the little bark still held to its anchor and finally rode out the gale with her crew lashed in the rigging. Nearby was another vessel in the same position, and others were being tossed about to windward and to leeward. Two poor fellows, washed from one of the former, were swept between the two vessels that had been knocked down and were not one hundred feet from either. The crews of these vessels, clinging to the icy rigging, looked anxiously from one to another to see if any one was bold enough to attempt a rescue. Angus McCloud cast off the lashings which bound him, seized a lanyard, made it fast about his waist and stood for a moment poised on the shroud lashings. Then he sprang boldly into an advancing wave and was carried toward one of the struggling men. Soon he had him by his oilskin coat and soon the crew were hauling them in. Angus assisted in the rescue of another comrade before the gale was spent and his vessel righted.