SIR J. C. ROSS'S EXPEDITION. 277 



free from besetment in the ice, and to return before the 

 close of the season. She sailed from the Thames on the 

 16th of May, 1849, and did not return that season ; and 

 she also became a subject of much public anxiety. 



The Enterprise and the Investigator left Upernavik 

 on the 13th of July, 1848 ; and, after running through 

 an intricate archipelago near the mainland, they arrived, 

 on the 20th, off Cape Shackleton, and there made fast 

 to a grounded iceberg. They were joined there by the 

 Lord Gambier whaling-ship, whose master informed them 

 that, having run to the southward with the rest of the 

 whalers, and having carefully examined the pack, he 

 had found it all so close, compact, and heavy, as not to 

 afford the slightest hope of any ship being able to find 

 an opening through it that season to the west. He had, 

 therefore, returned to the north, and expected that all 

 the other whalers would soon follow him ; and he had a 

 very confident hope that he should get round the north 

 end of the pack by the first week of August. But " the 

 middle ice,' ; as this great barrier along Baffin's Bay is 

 called, has ever put the wits of the whale-fishers to the 

 severest trial. The earliest date at which it has been 

 passed in any year is the 12th of June ; the latest at 

 which it has been found impassable is the 9th of Septem- 

 ber ; and the average date of the first ship of the season 

 passing it is about the 13th of July. But in 1848 it 

 could be passed only with extreme difficulty, and only 

 by far rounding to the north ; and, as was afterwards 

 ascertained, the first and almost only vessel which then 

 got past it was the Prince of Wales, of Hull, on the 6th 

 of August, about latitude 75. 



Early on the morning of the 21st of July, the expedi- 

 tion cast off from the iceberg, and began to tow their 

 way through loose streams of ice toward some lanes of 

 water in the distance. But both on this day and on the 



