A FROZEN SUMMER. 393 



from some other source yet undiscovered. Small as it 

 is, it will not occasion us much uneasiness. I am un- 

 able to get under the coal bunkers, because of the fifty- 

 six odd tons of coal there remaining, and the impracti- 

 cability of attempting to remove it while I am daily 

 hoping for a breaking up of the ice and a resumption 

 of our voyage. 



We have dug away all the ice we could get at under 

 the stern, in the hope of liberating our screw in order 

 to trice it up for examination. But enough ice re- 

 mains under water to hold it firmly. Leaning 3° or 4° 

 to starboard, the port side of our ship looms up like a 

 frigate, and at a little distance we stand, seemingly, on 

 top of the ice. Drawing but eight feet seven inches 

 forward, and twelve feet aft, gives us a very " down at 

 heel " look, and makes me wonder what we shall really 

 draw when the ice-cradle breaks up under us and lets 

 us down to our line of flotation. 



Our daily expenditure of fuel amounts to one hun- 

 dred and seventy pounds. (One hundred and ten 

 pounds for the galley and sixty for distilling.) I am 

 very much in hope that the distilling may soon be dis- 

 continued ; for the doctor, who has been carefully 

 watching and experimenting with the melting ice hum- 

 mocks and the ponds, informs me to-day that, though 

 the ponds are too salt for use, the surfaces of the hum- 

 mocks give water containing only two grains of chlo- 

 rine. Accordingly on Monday we shall commence col- 

 lecting surface ice in barrels, thawing the same and 

 testing the resulting water, and accumulate a tankful 

 if possible, thus relieving the distiller, and saving sixty 

 pounds coal per diem. 



The little ponds in our neighborhood have been freez- 

 ing every night at midnight with the thermometer at 



