A FROZEN SUMMER. 419 



by beginning it at the bows, and so covering the spar 

 deck over the entire berth deck. 



August 17th, Tuesday. — And so day by day our glo- 

 rious summer is passing away, and we are accomplish- 

 ing nothing. It is painful beyond expression to go 

 around the ice in the morning and see no chano-e since 

 the night before, and to look the last thing at night 

 at the same thing we saw in the morning ; and this has 

 continued nearly a year already, and may continue — ? 

 To start out full of zeal and energy, and to receive a 

 stunning blow at the first step, is somewhat demoraliz- 

 ing. If we could only do something. Like Hamlet, I 

 can say, " Wouldst drink up eisil ? eat a crocodile ? I '11 

 do it " — And so I would, if by so doing I could change 

 our position to one of usefulness. High as our temper- 

 ature is (34°), foggy weather a daily occurrence, the 

 most favorable occasions for getting rid of ice, except 

 frequent and varying gales of wind to break it up and 

 make openings, and yet here we are hard and fast, with 

 ponds here and there two or three feet deep, with an 

 occasional hole through to the sea. Is this always a 

 dead sea ? Does the ice never find an outlet ? Surely 

 it must go somewhere ; for as the thaw in three months 

 by no means equals the growth in nine months, it would 

 require but a few years to make this a .solid mass, and 

 so take up this Arctic Ocean entirely. It does not get 

 out through Behring Strait, for all ice met in Behring 

 Sea, or nearly all, is the formation of that locality. It 

 has no regular set in any direction, north, east, or west, 

 as far as I can judge, but slowly surges in obedience to 

 wind pressure, and grinds back again to an equilibrium 

 when the pressure ceases. Are there no tides in this 

 ocean ? 



Drifting about as we are, no tidal measurements are 



