442 



THE VOYAGE OF THE JEAXXETTE. 



taking the water again our leak might largely increase, 

 but we found for the time no difference. The water- 

 level on the ship was at the height of eight feet four 

 inches on the stem, and thirteen feet five and three 

 fourths inches on the rudder-post. Believing that the 

 ship was fairly afloat (her stem being sixteen inches from 

 the groove in which it had been resting), we carried an 

 ice-claw to the floe astern, placing it on our port quar- 

 ter, and, attaching a hawser, tried heaving with the cap- 

 stan. To our surprise, beyond swinging her bow a little 

 to starboard, perhaps a point, the ship was immovable. 

 Thinking the ice on either bow was holding her, we 

 took the ice-claw in a line right astern, and hove again 

 until we parted the hawser. Then we went to examin- 

 ing the ice around her bows. The groove in which her 

 stem had rested was in plain sight, and a crack in that 

 floe extended right ahead. Right against the bows on 

 either side there was water, but on reaching clown a 

 measuring rod under the starboard cat-head Chipp found 

 it strike on ice at a depth of seven feet four inches. Ev- 

 idently, then, her keel and forefoot were yet held in a 

 cradle. Desiring to get a little 

 away from the heavy floe which 

 had damaged us last winter, a 

 larger hawser was got out right 

 astern and hove on, but without 

 effect. The ice-saw, worked by a 

 rope from the fore yard, was then 

 brought into play, and put down 

 a hole which we found in the cra- 

 dle - piece, which, with its other 

 part eleven feet in thickness, we 



Af- 



commenced to saw through 



Sawing the Ice Under the Forefoot. ter we nac | sawn f 0r about five Or 



