PARRY'S FIRST VOYAGE. 115 



" The suddenness with which the changes take place 

 during the short season which may be called summer in 

 this climate, must appear very striking when it is re- 

 membered that, for a part of the first week in June, we 

 were under the necessity of thawing artificially th@ 

 snow which we made use of for water during the early 

 part of our journey to the northward ; that, during the 

 second week, the ground was in most parts so wet and 

 Bwampy that we could with difficulty travel ; and that, 

 had we not returned before the end of the third week, 

 we should probably have been prevented doing so for 

 some time, by the impossibility of crossing the ravines 

 without great danger of being carried away by the tor- 

 rents, an accident that happened to our hunting parties 

 on one or two occasions in endeavoring to return with 

 their game to the ships." 



By the middle of June, pools were everywhere formed ; 

 the water flowed in streams, and even in torrents, which 

 rendered hunting and travelling unsafe. There were 

 also channels in which boats could pass ; yet, through- 

 out this month and the following, the great covering of 

 ice in the surrounding sea remained entire, and kept the 

 ships in harbor. 



On the 2d of August, however, the whole mass, by 

 one of those sudden movements to which it is liable, 

 broke up, and floated out, and the explorers had now 

 open water in which to prosecute their great object. 



On the 15th they were enabled to make a certain 

 advance, after which the frozen surface of the ocean 

 assumed a more compact and impenetrable aspect than 

 had ever before been witnessed. The officers ascended 

 some of the lofty heights which bordered the coast ; 

 but, in a long reach of sea to the westward, no boundary 

 was seen to these icy barriers. There appeared only 

 the western extremity of Melville Island, named Cape 



