114 ELISHA KENT KANE. 



width, with a mean summer thickness of eighteen feet. The 

 ice clung to the rocks with extreme tenacity ; and, unlike 

 similar formations to the south, it had resisted the thawing 

 influences of summer. The tidal currents had worn its sea- 

 ward face into a gnarled mural escarpment, against which the 

 floes broke with splendid displays of force ; but it still pre- 

 served an upper surface comparatively level, and adapted as a 

 sort of highway for further travel. The drifting ice or pack 

 outside of it was utterly impenetrable; many bergs recently 

 discharged were driving backward and forward with the tides, 

 and thus, pressing upon the ice of the floes, had raised up 

 hills from sixty to seventy feet high. The mean rise and fall 

 of the tide was twelve feet, and its rate of motion two and a 

 half knots an hour. 



"In this state of things, having no alternative but either 

 to advance or to discontinue the search, I determined to take 

 advantage of a small interspace which occurred at certain 

 stages of the tide between the main pack and the coast, and, 

 if possible, press through it. I was confirmed in this purpose 

 by my knowledge of the extreme strength of the Advance, 

 and my confidence in the spirit and fidelity of my comrades. 

 The effort occupied us until the 1st of September. It was 

 attended by the usual dangers of ice-penetration. We were 

 on our beam-ends whenever the receding tides left us in de- 

 ficient soundings; and on two of such occasions it was im- 

 possible to secure our stoves so as to prevent the brig from 

 taking fire. We reached latitude 78 43' N. on the 29th 

 of August, having lost a part of our starboard bulwarks, a 

 quarter-boat, our jib-boom, our best bower-anchor, and about 

 six hundred fathoms of hawser; but with our brig in all 

 essentials uninjured. 



"We were now retarded by the rapid advance of winter: the 

 young ice was forming with such rapidity that it became 



