Chap. IX. PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE. 303 



In fact, the commander of the expedition, the 

 officers and men, had all of them been laboriously 

 and uselessly employed for thirty-five days of con- 

 tinuous and most fatiguing drudgery, to be com- 

 pared in its effect to nothing less than the labour 

 of rolling the stone of Sisyphus, the floe on which 

 they were traversing, as they supposed, ten or 

 twelve miles one day, having rolled them back 

 again ten or twelve miles, and often more, the 

 next. 



The furthest point of latitude reached was on 



the 23rd, and probably was to 82° 45' ; that of their 



return 82° 40' 23", and long. 19° 25' east. The 



day was one of the warmest and most pleasant they 



yet had experienced upon the ice ; the thermometer 



only from 31° to 36° in the shade, and 37° in the 



sun ; no bottom with 500 fathoms of line. 



" At the extreme point of our journey our distance from 

 the Hecla was only one hundred and seventy-two miles in a 

 S. 8° TV. direction. To accomplish this distance we had 

 traversed by our reckoning, two hundred and ninety-two 

 miles, of which about one hundred were performed by water 

 previously to our entering the ice. As we travelled by far 

 the greater part of our distance on the ice, three, and not 

 unfrequently five, times over, w r e may safely multiply the 

 length of the road by two and a half; so that our whole 

 distance, on a very moderate calculation, amounted to five 

 hundred and eighty geographical, or six hundred and sixty - 

 eight statute miles, being nearly sufficient to have reached 

 the Pole in a direct line. Up to this period we had been 

 particularly fortunate in the preservation of our health ; 

 neither sickness nor casualties having occurred among us, 



