110 A DOCK CUT IN THE ICE. 



hid the looser portions of ice between the floes, 

 and thereby rendered the destined expedition too 

 hazardous. About 9 h a. m., a relaxation in the 

 pressure encouraged us to try to warp the ship 

 from her present unsafe situation, and this being 

 found impracticable, the whole crew were em- 

 ployed to cut a canal with axes and other 

 implements, which attempt also was after a fair 

 trial abandoned, as the heavier masses of ice 

 squeezed forward into each vacancy as fast as it 

 was made. The large floe against the larboard, 

 which was the side nearest to the land, was much 

 piled up with hummocks, and directly alongside 

 was upwards of twenty feet thick; and with 

 the double view of employing the people, and 

 to make an experiment which, if successful, 

 might be found advantageous, it was determined 

 to cut a dock in the pure ice. Accordingly, 

 after the dimensions were measured, the officers 

 and men set to work, and having, in the course 

 of four hours, sunk a trench as many feet deep, 

 satisfied me that, assuming the floe to be of a 

 uniform thickness, they could finish the work 

 in ten days at the most. On this occasion, it hap- 

 pened, contrary to expectation, that the ice near 

 us, and only that near us, began at that moment 

 to open, so that by five o'clock p. m. there was a 

 lane for two or three hundred yards, so free of 



