ELISIIA KENT KANE. 43 



tion except in a small circle six miles in extent. 

 Innumerable efforts were made to warp and work 

 their way through the ice, but generally to little 

 purpose. They were embedded in what is known 

 as the Middle Pack of Melville Bay. Sometimes, 

 during the progress of a day, they advanced half a 

 ship's length. New ice was constantly forming in 

 the little pools in which the vessels lay. And this 

 occurred in July, beneath a midsummer's sun ! On 

 the 28th of the month the wind shifted to the east- 

 ward, the floes opened wider, water became visible 

 to the north and east, and the men cast off" and 

 commenced to bore the ice. The sea was now 

 covered with immense fragments of broken ice, 

 which dashed and surged around them, grinding 

 fiercely against each other and 'sometimes against the 

 helpless vessels tossing in their midst. They sailed 

 along with their topsail-yard on the cap. A gale 

 blew, and they ran a perilous race before it. On 

 the 29th they left the pack, and in two days they 

 had made forty miles in spite of the perils of the 

 rolling icebergs and the turbulent sea. 



On the 2d of August the vessels reached the coast 

 between Allison's and Duneira Bays, north of 75. 

 Here they caught v a glimpse of the shores of Green 

 land. It was covered with immense glaciers, which, 

 even at the distance of eighteen miles, presented a 



