202 UNDER-CURRENTS. [CHAP.IV. 



barometer had for two days indicated symp- 

 toms of some change, for the mercury fell slowly, 

 and on January 27th, at 10 h a.m. was 29. 22. 

 while the temperature varied in the night up to 

 the same hour, from 47°— to 34°—. It was 

 then too misty with snow drift to make out the 

 land clearly, though we could do so sufficiently 

 to ascertain that we had been driven something 

 farther from it than before, and more to the east- 

 ward. From this gradual falling of the mercury of 

 the barometer over a period of nearly three days, 

 and the fluctuations in the ice at a time of moon 

 when the contrary was to be expected, I should 

 conjecture that there had been boisterous weather 

 in some other quarter, probably not very remote, 

 and yetfar enough for the intervening ice to qualify 

 and counteract its further progress — an effect 

 familiar to those who have been driven from a 

 heavy gale into a pack for protection. The 

 transition in such cases is often as sudden as it is 

 agreeable ; but the under motion of the sea 

 continues for a considerable extent, though of 

 course gradually diminishing in intensity. It 

 was probably something of this kind which oc- 

 casioned the singular movements above described. 

 For an undulation beneath the surface of ice, aid- 

 ing or opposing the current, especially about the 

 hours when it was influenced by the tides, would 

 be likely to produce such effects. I give this, 



