DRIFTING IN ICE OFF HERALD ISLAND. 115 



direction of Herald Island. For the first two hours we 

 had but little trouble in making our way, but at six a. m. 

 we commenced to meet young ice ranging from one to 

 two inches in thickness in the leads, and seemingly grow- 

 ing- tougher as we proceeded. We ground along, how- 

 ever, scratching, and in places scoring and cutting our 

 doubling, until 8.40 a. m., wdien we came to pack ice 

 from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, which of cour.'^e 

 brought us up. Anchored to the floe to wait for an 

 opening. 



During the forenoon there were several occasions 

 wdien we distinctly saw land beyond and above Herald 

 Island, as w^ll as to the southwest of and beyond it. I 

 should at first have been inclined to think that the land 

 above and beyond Herald Island was a kind of false 

 island made by the mirage ; but as the land seen to the 

 southwest of Herald Island was in the shape of high 

 sugar-loaf snow-topped mountains with clearly defined 

 edges, such as could not have been caused by mirage, 

 for there were no hummocks in our floe horizon to be 

 thus distorted, I am strengtliened in my belief that we 

 really saw the land. Its distance is impossible even to 

 estimate. Looking across the ice disturbs one's belief 

 in his accuracy in measuring distances by the eye. For 

 instance, on board ship we generally agree as to the 

 distance of an object at sea ; but here in the ice no 

 two estimates correspond. We put the distance of this 

 land seen beyond Herald Island at various limits, rang- 

 ing between forty and one hundred miles ; and though 

 since sighting Herald Island last night we have steamed 

 towards it twenty miles, one half the estimated dis- 

 tance, but few of us agree as to its distance now. We 

 range from ten to forty miles. At one P. M., seeing an- 

 other chance to make a mile or two, we got up steam 



