BENNETT ISLAND. 671 



ated. The barometer is still falling, the rain beats 

 down from time to time, and nothing can be seen 

 through the fog. I decide to wait for an improve- 

 ment, and then I shall push on in the second cutter 

 and try to land some provisions. 



Soundings in thirteen fathoms ; no drift indicated. 

 Our ice is evidently jammed tight. Probably at the 

 first chance the loose hummocks now pressing against 

 it will slack off and leave us place to launch our boats, 

 even if our floe piece does not go bodily in toward the 

 land. 



During the afternoon the ice scene was constantly 

 changing. At one moment ice seemed to reach from 

 our floe to the land ; at another time lanes of water 

 were seen, and once our floe was left as an island, while 

 it would have been possible to launch a boat and reach 

 the shore. I confess I was tempted to try it, but I re- 

 alized that the whaleboat could carry nothing more 

 than her crew safely until her garboards were re- 

 paired, and that it would take six or seven trips of the 

 two other boats to carry our effects. The whaleboat 

 has leaked badly each time she has been floated, and 

 the weather to-day (the first chance for repairs) has 

 been such that Sweetman could not handle his tools. 

 Before I could have got one boat in the water ice shoved 

 in between us and the land, and we were once more 

 helpless. It seems as if Providence were directing our 

 movements, for the floe upon which we camped last 

 night is the only large piece of ice to be seen ; all 

 else is confusion and trouble. Had I gone farther, or 

 stopped short of this place, it is hard to say where we 

 should be now. 



We are moving west slowly, about a mile or a mile 

 and a half from the land, and are now (seven p. m.) 



