368 THE SHOKE-ICE. 



June 5 th. 



T resume the narrative. 



The march to the cache was a very tedious one, 

 but we took it leisurely, and got through with it in 

 sixteen hours, to find our food unmolested. The re- 

 peated halts to rest the dogs gave me abundant leis- 

 ure to search among the limestone cliffs for further 

 fossil remains, and my exertions were rewarded with 

 a valuable collection. It is, perhaps, too much to say 

 that they are fossils of the Silurian era, from a hasty 

 examination ; but I think it more than probable. 



I had also opportunity to measure some of the 

 masses of ice which had been forced upon the shore. 

 In many jolaces these masses were crowded together, 

 forming an almost impassable barrier. In other 

 places the ice-foot had been torn through, and in one 

 spot a table sixty feet in thickness and forty yards 

 across had been crowded on the sloping shore, push- 

 ing up the loose, rocky debris which lay at the base of 

 the cliffs ; and when the pack that had caused the 

 disturbance had drifted away, this fragment Avas left 

 with its lower edge above the tide. Around it were 

 piled other masses ; and, in order to pass it, we were 

 obliged to climb far up the hill-side. 



Our next day's journey was even more difficult, as 

 we became entangled among deep snow-drifts below 

 Cape Frazer, and, on account of the rotten condi- 

 tion of the ice lining the shore, we could not take to 

 the ice-fields. We tried twice, and came near paying 

 dearly for the experiment. One of the teams got in 

 bodily, and was extricated with difficulty ; while, on 

 the other occasion, I, acting in my usual capacity of 

 pilot, saved myself from a cold bath with my ice-pole, 

 which, plunging through the rotten ice and disappear- 



