220 TIDAL PRESSURES. [August, 



Ocean met that from Lancaster Sound, as nearly as I 

 could determine, at Cape Bowden, and much in the same 

 manner as the Channel and North Sea tides meet about 

 Dover. Hence it was clear, to niy mind, that without a 

 great effort of Nature to clear away the ice northerly 

 as well as southerly of that parallel, antagonistic forces 

 must continue to compress any loose floes together, and 

 perfect a solid barrier in that, the narrowest, portion of 

 Wellington Channel. 



Such had been clearly Nature's operation during the 

 interval which had elapsed since I travelled over this 

 floe ; every crack had been pressed home cemented 

 afresh, and so far had winter commenced, that the pools, 

 resulting from late thaws, were covered with ice of such 

 thickness as to bear the weight of men and boat. 



In my notes I observe : " Over an expanse of twenty- 

 four miles these cracks had occurred in as many intervals; 

 but now one solid barrier, cemented in many places by 

 young ice, and where pools occurred on the floe, so hardly 

 frozen as to bear both men and sledge, left but little hope 

 of release until too late in the season to afford any pro- 

 spect of reaching Beechey Island this year. And it was 

 still a doubtful question, if this barrier should be shivered 

 by any competent effort of Nature (such as that which 

 overwhelmed poor Bellot last year), if our vessels could 

 survive the inevitable pressure to which they would be 

 subjected. 



Looking to the present positions of the ' Assistance' 

 and ' Pioneer,' on the upper portion of the channel, now 

 completely barred to the southward, I found that the 

 motions of the northern tides allowed of a play of forty 



