710 THE VOYAGE OF THE JE ANNETTE. 



The ice had closed on him, and, seriously enough, 

 had stove a hole in the cutter's port bow. He at once 

 dragged the boat out and repaired her with a piece of 

 Liebig box. When we stopped for snow I had a sound- 

 ing taken, and we got nine fathoms water. I naturally 

 supposed we were near the land, and that the everlast- 

 ing fog alone prevented us from seeing it. At noon I 

 got the lead down again and found fifteen fathoms, so I 

 must choose between a wrong sounding (touching an 

 ice-tongue) or the discovery of a shoal. 



I before remarked that the ice seemed to come 

 around us like magic, and that it was moving and swirl- 

 ing about as if in a tideway. As we proceeded, the 

 wind veered to the east, and we found ourselves work- 

 ing among loose streams of drift ice, through which at 

 times we could see the open ocean beyond. 



The streams obliged us to make a course about south 

 southeast, and to south and southwest pack edge could 

 be made out, the ice behind it being closely packed to- 

 gether. By 7.30 we had made about six miles good, 

 our boats making so much leeway as to force us to steer 

 much higher than I wanted to go. At that time I 

 could see no land, though our view was exceedingly 

 limited. But the sky looked very ugly, and our fur- 

 ther progress might, in our loaded condition, be exceed- 

 ingly risky. 



The second cutter had taken in a large quantity of 

 water and needed emptying, and if w r e were at the open 

 sea, as I believed, material changes and reductions ought 

 to be made in the stowage of all the boats. Accord- 

 ingly I ran alongside the pack, unloaded, hauled out, 

 and camped. Hardly had I done so than an east gale 

 broke upon us, and it raged all the evening. Tem- 

 perature 26°. Soundings in fourteen and a half fath- 

 oms (sandy bottom). 



