360 FIRST GRINNELL EXPEDITION. 



Early in February the northern horizon began to be 

 streaked with gorgeous twilight, the herald of the 

 approaching sun ; and on the 18th his disc first appeared 

 above the horizon. As the golden rim rose above the 

 glittering snow-drifts and piles of ice, three hearty 

 cheers went up from those hardy mariners, and they 

 enthusiastically welcomed their deliverer from the chains 

 of frost. Day after day the sun rose higher and higher, 

 and vast masses of ice began to yield to his fervid influ- 

 ences. The scurvy disappeared, and from that time, 

 until their arrival home, not a man suffered from sick- 

 ness. As they slowly drifted through Davis's Straits, 

 and the ice gave indications of breaking up, the voy- 

 agers made preparations for sailing. The Rescue was 

 reoccupied (May 12th, 1851), and her stern-post, which 

 had been broken by the ice in Barrow's Straits, was 

 repaired. To accomplish this, they were obliged to dig 

 away the ice, which was from twelve to fourteen feet 

 thick around her. They re-shipped their rudders ; 

 removed the felt covering ; placed their stores on deck, 

 and then patiently awaited the disruption of the ice. 

 This event was very sudden and appalling. It began 

 to give way on the 5th of June, and in the space of 

 twenty minutes the whole mass, as far as the eye could 

 reach, became one vast field of moving floes. 



On the 10th of June, 1851, they emerged into open 

 water a little south of the Arctic Circle, in latitude 65 

 30'. They immediately repaired to Godhaven, on the 

 coast of Greenland, where they re-fitted, and, unappalled 

 by the perils through which they had just passed, they 

 once more turned their prows northward, to encounter 

 anew the ice squadrons of Baffin's Bay. Again they 

 traversed the coast of Greenland to about the 73d degree, 

 when they bore to the westward, and on the 7th and 8th 

 of July passed the English whaling-fleet near the Dutch 



