THE DEAD OF WINTER. 219 



no particular fear ; and when I saw the floe on her port 

 side buclvle up and break in long thwartship cracks, and 

 then the movement and pressure both seem to cease, 

 I believed that we had weathered one more nip. 



At 10.30 A. M. when the men went down in the fire- 

 room at the daily serving out of coal, Sharvell heard 

 the running of water in the bilges, and promptly re- 

 ported it. An examination was made at once, and we 

 discovered that water w^as flowing from forward. Fol- 

 lowing it up we found to our dismay that there were 

 two streams of water an inch in diameter, flowing 

 through the filling which had beeii put in below the 

 berth deck at the Mare Island Yard ; and that the 

 water stood at a depth of eighteen inches in the fore- 

 peak, at twenty-four inches in the store-room, next 

 abaft it, and thirty-six inches in the fore hold, while in 

 the fire-room it was over the floor-plates on the star- 

 board side. The deck-pumps were at once rigged and 

 manned, and I ordered steam to be raised on the port 

 boiler to run the steam-pump. While one watch worked 

 the pumps, the other watch were put at work breaking 

 out the fore peak, hoisting the flour out of the store- 

 room next abaft it, and breaking out the fore hold. To 

 my great relief the pumps seemed to hold their own. 

 The forward bilge-pump (the only one worked) being 

 in the deck-house, the men were sheltered from the in- 

 tense cold, and were able to work to advantage. We 

 had great difficulty in getting the use of the steam- 

 pump. In the first place, the sea cocks being frozen 

 we could not run up the boiler from the sea, and hence 

 had to resort to pouring water from buckets through the 

 man-hole plates. The temperature of the fire-room 

 was then minus 29°, and we were a long time in getting 

 the pump in a condition fit for use. But by Melville's 



