1854.] DRIVEN ABOUT BY THE PACK. 141 



and stood along the pack edge in the direction of Byani 

 Martin Island. Here we were stopped ; lanes into the 

 pack, but nothing that I could attempt to take. We beat 

 about for the day with fresh north-west winds, our water 

 being seven or eight miles south and east of Griffiths, and 

 a good deal of water to the northward, in the Byani 

 Martin Channel. Hoping to get to the northward of 

 the ice driving down this channel and then easterly, I 

 went up it in tow : after getting up some distance the 

 pack approached, and appeared to join it ahead. I made 

 fast on its edge in very thick snowy weather, the wind 

 shifting to the eastward of north, shoaling my water 

 suddenly from seventy to twelve fathoms. I was obliged 

 to run into the pack, so as to have sea between me and 

 the shore. We now remained beset, driving up and 

 down in thick weather, for two days, having very vari- 

 able soundings. We got into open water again on the 

 23rd A.M., ran down the pack edge to the southward and 

 eastward, found it all tight, beat about for the day, in 

 the evening made fast to a piece of land floe north of 

 Point Griffith ; from that time until the 6th of Septem- 

 ber the winds were constant, between south and west- 

 south-west, mostly light, the pack closing right up to 

 the ship and opening for a mile alternately, with leads 

 into it easterly for four or five miles. On the 7th the 

 wind returned to the north-westward, a fine fresh breeze. 

 This I conceived would have been the moment of our 

 release ; the pack went off rapidly. After freeing my- 

 self from the young ice, which now began to make very 

 strong, I ran off to the pack edge and followed it to the 

 south-eastward, until it turned up to the westward ; 



