1853.] WATER RISES OVER THE FLOE. 219 



feet, and the mean thickness of ice at six feet, we should 

 obtain twenty-one feet as the apparent thickness of the 

 floe within twenty yards of our sides. All the ice be- 

 tween us and the ' Pioneer' is much thicker, and that 

 between us and the shore grounds, where we had our 

 tide-pole in sixteen feet ! The bondjide off-shore floe of 

 a season does not, I believe, exceed six feet in thickness, 

 and should you come into collision with it, will find any 

 increase quite immaterial : it does its work as surely as 

 an iceberg of six hundred feet. 



To return to our tide-pole : no sooner had this hole 

 been completed, than the water rushed up similar to an 

 Artesian spring, covering our promenades with about 

 ten inches' depth of water, and causing some fears for 

 the sinking of the snow wreath before alluded to, now 

 representing, very prettily, a heavy white roller about to 

 overwhelm the ship. 



At times I did not feel quite satisfied that mischief 

 might not occur. Our fire-hole, abreast of the ship, had 

 been kept open all winter, and no such overflow as this 

 had occurred. Taking also into consideration that the 

 enormous weight firmly attached to both sides might, 

 by some sudden movement, be released on either; the 

 strain which any such sudden action must produce 

 would materially injure the ship. We had no remedy 

 but to " let well alone," and all would probably in due 

 time work its own course, irrespective of any feeble ef- 

 forts that we could make ; independent of which, it was 

 not a time to weary our crew with any unnecessary ex- 

 ertion. With the low temperature which must yet pre- 

 vail for some time, and probably below zero, this must 



