1852.] REFLECTIONS ON MELVILLE BAY. 59 



empty casks in the fore-hold. We gave the ' St. Andrew' 

 a tow up to the whaling fleet, which we discovered that 

 afternoon, docking in company with thirteen, about ten 

 o'clock that same evening. 



The great floe of Melville Bay, where we were now 

 secured, deserves some little notice. Enlivened, as at 

 present, with a forest of masts and animated beings, its 

 wilderness is not sufficiently contemplated. But let the 

 solitary vessel be there imprisoned, and compelled for 

 \v<vks, without a consort, to anxiously watch every change, 

 night and day, which may afford her the slightest chance 

 of getting into the " north water," and every inspection 

 must impress upon the mind the dreary monotony of 

 that floe ! As far as the eye can range, a painfully white, 

 even surface prevails, here and there broken by a huge 

 iceberg ; or where mounds of crushed ice or nips present 

 themselves, piles of rubbly irregularities, like huge paving 

 flags, cause the mind to dwell on the stupendous power 

 engaged. The eyes become painfully affected by the 

 glare, particularly when the sun is bright. The icy sur- 

 face is generally covered with a fine sheet of snow, or, 

 at times, fine comminuted drift ice, which on close in- 

 spection will appear to resemble hailstones. 



This floe-covered ocean varies in the thickness of its 

 sheet of ice from two to seven feet, and, where pressure 

 has taken effect, is frequently doubled or trebled by al- 

 ternate flakes pressed under by the meeting of conflicting 

 floes. It is owing to the pressure of hundreds or thou- 

 sands of acres against the land-fast ice, catching a vessel 

 unprepared by docking, that these fatal " nips" result. 



The computation of the floating weight simply of a 

 surface three hundred yards square amounts to 63,080 



