CHAP. VI.] STRONG WINDS. 855 



this would continue for several hours ; yet our 

 conjectures in this, as in many other cases, were 

 wrong, and it closed again almost immediately. 

 Neither was there any improvement during the 

 night, and on June 7th the whole surface was 

 more compact than had been observed for a 

 month past ; not a drop of water was to be seen. 

 The thickness of the weather intercepted our 

 view of the land, though, from a hasty glimpse, 

 Salisbury Island seemed farther to the north. 



The wind, which continued to blow steadily 

 from the same quarter, but with increasing vio- 

 lence, at length began to have some effect on 

 the immense surface surrounding us ; and al- 

 though at midnight no water was visible, shortly 

 after, on June 8th> a lane opened out astern, 

 extending, with some interruption, three or four 

 hundred yards to the south-west, in which di- 

 rection several large holes were subsequently 

 seem The ice immediately astern and adjoining 

 the lane was more loose and disengaged from the 

 larger compact masses than it had previously 

 been, so that there was fresh reason to hope that 

 the seaward body was streaming away from the 

 entrance of the Straits and the neighbourhood of 

 the Labrador coast. At noon we had drifted, 

 by estimation, about eleven miles : Salisbury 

 Island was no longer to be seen. The latitude 

 placed us one mile to the south of yesterday's 



a a 2 



