CHAP. IV.] FLOE DIMINISHES. 203 



of course, as a mere conjecture, which however 

 I thought it better to note down when the 

 phenomena were before my eyes, than to trust 

 to any after judgment, when the facts may present 

 themselves less vividly to the mind, or be dis- 

 torted to suit some theory. 



At noon the Cape was dimly seen before the 

 beam, and soundings were obtained in one hun- 

 dred and fifty-six fathoms on a bottom of green 

 mud. On the 28th lanes of water were seen in 

 various directions, and we were sorry to observe 

 that we had lost about sixty paces of the floe, to 

 say nothing of the unwelcome appearance of a 

 small opening of water at the edge of it astern. 

 An officer had been round the floe and reported 

 the inshore ice to be setting fast to the eastward, 

 which led to an unfounded notion that we had 

 rounded the Cape ; the detection, for the first 

 time, of an under-current, while sounding, having 

 strengthened the conjecture. The set of this 

 current could not be determined, in consequence 

 of the many under layers of ice which caught and 

 entangled the line. It is probably by an ac- 

 cumulation of such layers, cemented together in 

 bights or bays, sheltered by projecting capes or 

 headlands, and less liable to disturbance from 

 currents and tides, that the very thick ice found 

 in many parts of floes is formed ; for we had 

 ocular demonstration, that with a very low tempe- 



