186 ANXIETY FOR THE FLOE. [CHAP.IV. 



Oar experimental hospital having proved a 

 failure, we now determined to build up a small 

 cabin on the larboard side of the forecastle with 

 all the spare plank and spars we could afford; 

 and though we could not expect the external 

 air to be excluded as effectually as might be 

 wished, yet we were not without hopes that, 

 with the aid of a covering of sails, the place 

 might be made tolerable. Night came, and in its 

 train, wind and drift; the land, however, was 

 just distinguished abeam at 8 h p. m., as well as 

 could be judged not further off than before. 

 Towards midnight there must have been im- 

 mense pressure from the northward, as the ship 

 not only creaked about the afterpart, but heeled 

 over to starboard ; and this circumstance reviving 

 t all my anxiety for the stability of the floe on which, 

 thus close in with the shore, our safety in a great 

 degree depended, altogether deprived me of sleep. 

 Morning, however, of January 12th arrived, and 

 found us still imbedded within three miles of the 

 beach to the eastward of the Ridge Cliff, with 

 soundings in seventy-eight fathoms of mud and 

 sand. We had been set into the outer line of a bay, 

 with the same headland before us about eight or 

 ten miles away. Sloping from the Cliff was a 

 continuous deposition (as it seemed) of coarse 

 gravel or shingle, through the surface of which 

 there cropped out at intervals craggy black 

 rocks. Connected with these, again, were vari- 



