THE LAST OF THE JE ANNETTE. 567 



diameter about a mile in extent, and its shorter di- 

 ameter about half that amount. Close to us we had 

 plenty of water, but it was in disconnected spots, and 

 we should have been infinitely worse off had we been 

 in one of them. No lead making toward Henrietta Isl- 

 and was to be seen, and in fact the changes going on 

 all over, except in our isolated spot, were so kaleido- 

 scopic that it would have been impossible to detect 

 such a lead if it had existed. Lanes and openings were 

 forming and closing during all the forenoon, and every 

 once in a while the sudden rearing up of some ridge of 

 broken floe pieces, twenty and thirty feet high, showed 

 where a lane had closed, or the sudden tumbling of a 

 mound showed where a lane was opening. In all this 

 confusion worse confounded we remained as quiet as 

 ever. We were moving along slowly and grandly, a 

 dignified figure in the midst of a howling wilderness. 

 Had our floe broken up and hurled us adrift we should 

 have had the liveliest time in our cruise, for to have 

 escaped destruction would have been a miracle, and to 

 have got anything or any person out of the ship in 

 case of accident an impossibility. One can hardly fall 

 back upon yawning chasms for launching boats or de- 

 positing provisions. 



Over such ice as this Melville charged in for the land 

 on his late journey, and he tells me on one occasion, 

 while aiding Dunbar across a large hummock up-ended, 

 the ice opened beneath them, and the hummock sank 

 until they just escaped touching the water as they 

 sprawled out on the ice. 



In anticipation of any accident or mishap I had the 

 steam-cutter hoisted, the kayak and the oumiak brought 

 aboard, and all other things which could not be grasped 

 at a moment's notice. 



