382 FIND A PORTION OF A VESSEL. [September, 



having been unable to carry out my intentions, had 

 gone on with, the sledge only. 



September 14. I had made arrangements this morn- 

 ing for the further collection of the scraps dug up ; but 

 the ice made such unmistakable signs of general dis- 

 turbance, as to render it necessary to clear away a safer 

 position for the ship and tender within the grounded 

 hummocks. The crews of both vessels were immediately 

 at work, cutting clocks and clearing away the bay ice, 

 now about nine inches in thickness. During this in- 

 terval I was surprised by the boatswain bringing to me 

 part of the furniture of a vessel, apparently the runner of 

 a sliding hatch, and painted similarly to our own vessels 

 or of yachts ; it was of teak, and I instantly connected 

 it with the former piece found by Mr. Grove, as part 

 of the same vessel. The only reasonable idea which 

 occurred to me (as it evidently did not belong to any 

 Government vessel) was, that it might be part of ' The 

 Mary,' which Commander Pullen had launched in order 

 to visit Port Leopold, and she might have been nipped 



cause that shall thus modify the first and last formed fibres of each 

 year's deposit of wood, so that that first formed may differ in amount 

 as well as in kind from that last formed, and the peculiar conditions of 

 an Arctic climate appear to afford an adequate solution. The inner or 

 first-formed zone must be regarded as imperfectly developed, being de- 

 posited at a season when the functions of the plant are very intermit- 

 tently exercised, and when a few short hours of hot sunshine are daily 

 succeeded by many of extreme cold. As the season advances, the sun's 

 heat and light are continuous during the greater part of the twenty- 

 four hours, and the newly-formed wood-fibres are hence more perfectly 

 developed, they are much larger, present no signs of striae, but are 

 studded with discs of a more highly organized structure than are usual 

 in the Natural Order to which this tree belongs." .T. D. HOOKEII. 



