398 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



with hook attached, to catch under these floes, and thus 

 give a measure of their thickness. Upon his return 

 he reports that he measured floes ten and twelve feet 

 thick, and some fourteen and fifteen feet thick, and the 

 surface was " from a foot to eighteen inches above the 

 watero" It is, of course, impossible that such thick- 

 nesses should be ascribed to any one single floe. I am 

 satisfied that when water has frozen to a thickness of 

 eight feet the ice forms a blanket wdiich effectually 

 prevents the radiation of heat from the water beneath, 

 and thus makes further freezing impossible. Any 

 further thickness is due to deposits of snow on the sur- 

 face, or the shoving under of another floe and a union 

 by regelation between the two. When, last November, 

 we were squeezed out of our icy bed and pushed out 

 into water, we were as truly floating for a time as if in 

 mid-ocean. The next day, however, we were iced in. 

 This freezino; continued from November 28th to Janu- 

 ary 17th, by which latter date the ice had a thickness 

 of forty-eight inches (four feet). Subsequent measure- 

 ments were rendered impossible by the smash up of 

 the 19th of January, when floes so overrode and under- 

 rode our surrounding ice as to jumble it all in a heap. 

 When we commenced to dig a canal around the ship w^e 

 dug through four feet of ice before the water flowed in 

 on us, but that depth was due to piling up, of course, 

 and not to any direct freezing. As our leak has almost 

 altoo^ether subsided, it is safe to assume that we are 

 buoyed up by a floe of ice extending down and under 

 the keel, which floe, being lightened by its surface 

 thawing under the ashes and refuse we had spread 

 around us, is enabled to float so much higher. One of 

 these days, let us hope, this mass will break and let us 

 down to our bearins-s. 



