Chap. XIII. BACK'S ATTEMPT TO REACH REPULSE BAY. 493 



large floe, which the ice-mate told him was the only 

 one sufficiently strong for the purpose ; and that the 

 ship would be protected as long as it held together. 

 Fortunately, however, the very next day a general 

 commotion took place, when the whole body of ice 

 separated into single masses, tossed into heaps, or 

 ground into powder, and crushed everything that 

 opposed them, rushing violently to the westward, 

 directly up the Frozen Strait; and thus ended for a 

 time the projected floating dock, the floe having 

 wholly disappeared ; but others soon supplied its 

 place, and the Terror was as fast as ever, without the 

 labour of digging a dock. " Thus," says Back, 

 " ended a month of vexation, disappointment, and 

 anxiety, to me personally more distressing and in- 

 tolerable than the worst pressure of the worst evils 

 which had befallen me in any other expedition." 



The month of November having commenced, it 

 became necessary to set about a warming apparatus 

 for the ship; but the experiment woefully failed. 

 They were still off Cape Comfort, and so near the 

 shore that the people strolled over the ice to it ; and 

 Lieutenant Stanley went to survey a harbour, which 

 he found a mile and a half long, by half a mile broad, 

 and to which was given the name of Smyth's Har- 

 bour. On the 14th, the pack which had hurried 

 them about had taken them, according to Lieutenant 

 Stanley's measurement, within 3650 yards of the 

 inaccessible cliffs of Cape Comfort, on which there 



