406 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



the services of Alexey to get me to my destinution. 

 A white man inspires no fear among these animals. 

 Reaching the open water I found it was about one 

 fourth of a mile in width, enough to handle a vessel in 

 under steam, but made a circle around the ship irreg- 

 ularly. I am satisfied that nearly all the ice in our 

 neighborhood is of this last winter's formation, having 

 frozen over the small lake into which we were squeezed 

 out from among the heavy ice on November 25th last. 

 The borders of our island are formed of ice of great 

 thickness, perhaps forty feet thick, whose surfaces are 

 about three feet above the level of the water. The ice 

 which immediately surrounds us has an average thick- 

 ness of say five feet, except where crowding, as for 

 instance under our bows, has caused one layer to ride 

 over or under another, making a thickness of ten or 

 fifteen feet. 



Owing to decay, the cradle of ice holding the ship 

 is becoming specifically lighter, and buoying us up ; 

 for to-day the water-level stands at seven feet four 

 inches forward, and eleven feet eight and a fourth 

 inches aft. We are also slowly increasing our heel 

 to starboard, it being now 51°. 



July 20th, Tuesday. — A day of no importance what- 

 ever. Desiring to learn something of the character of 

 the ice at the borders of our island, I started at one 

 p. M., accompanied by Melville and Dunbar and a heavy 

 dog team. Going out to southeast, we got around to 

 west in about two hours and a half ; but as the sledg- 

 ing was in some places very bad over broken ice, 

 the time was much longer than the actual distance 

 would have required if on a level. The character of 

 the ice is as indicated in yesterday's record, — one 

 season's ice near the ship, and old and very heavy ice 



