374 EXTRAORDINARY EDDIES. [CHAP.VI. 



temperature was only 40° + , the weather calm 

 but hazy with snow, the barometer 29. 5 1 . Much 

 ice drifted past and as far as the ship in the 

 afternoon, among which, were several perfectly 

 even floes of six to seven hundred yards long, of 

 a pale blue colour, and evidently of last winter's 

 formation \ while, contrasting with these, were 

 others more soiled and channeled, that had ap- 

 parently strayed from the northern lands at the 

 head of Fox's Channel, bearing on their shoulders 

 the ruins of other floes which had been broken 

 and borne over them in the convulsions of 

 , those extraordinary eddies. These did not re- 

 main ; for in the early morning, a little after the 

 close of the longest day, with the last rays of 

 which the sky was yet tinted, they swept by, 

 leaving us as usual fixed in our unyielding bed. 

 There was a dead calm, and even on the day 

 of the summer solstice, the temperature sank to 

 27° + . The crew, under the immediate direction 

 of the first Lieutenant, were set to work at 

 5 h a. m., and performed the novel duty with 

 good humour and perseverance. By noon we 

 had been drifted to the eastward, the latitude 

 being 62° 54' 50", and longitude 74° 40' 30". 



The character of the shore was comparatively 

 low, even, and rocky, about the eastern extremity, 

 but farther west, was more hilly, and if not com- 

 posed of more than one island must possess some 



