IX.] VOYAGE RESUMED. 343 



not advisable to remain longer here. It had besides appeared 

 from the hill-top which I visited the day before that an open 

 water channel, only interrupted at two places by ice, was still to 

 be found along the coast. The anchor accordingly was weighed, 

 and the Vega steamed on, but in a depth of only 6 to 8 metres. 

 As the Vegas draught is from 4'8 to 5 metres, we had only a 

 little water under the keel, and that among ice in quite unknown 

 Avaters. About twenty kilometres from the anchorage, we met 

 with a belt of ice through which we could make our way though 

 only with great difficulty, thanks to the Vega's strong bow ena- 

 bling her to withstand the violent concussions. Our voyage was 

 then continued, often in yet shallower water than before, until 

 the vessel, at 8 o'clock in the morning, struck on a ground 

 ice foot. The tide was falling, and on that account it was not 

 until next morning that we could get off, after a considerable 

 portion of the ground-ice, on whose foot the Vega had run up, 

 had been hewoi away with axes and ice-hatchets. Some attempts 

 were made to blast the ice with gunpowder, but they were un- 

 successful. For this purpose dynamite is much more efficacious, 

 and this explosive ought therefore always to fonn part of the 

 equipment in voyages in which belts of ice have to be broken 

 through. 



On the 19th we continued our voyage in the same way as 

 before, in still and for the most part shallow water near the 

 coast, between high masses of ground-ice, which frequently had 

 the most picturesque forms. Later in the day we again fell in 

 with very low ice formed in rivers and shut-in inlets of the sea, 

 and came into slightly salt water having a temperature above 

 the freezing-point. 



After having been moored during the night to a large ground- 

 ice, the Vega continued her course on the 20th September 

 almost exclusively among low, dirty ice, which had not been 

 much pressed together during the preceding winter. This ice 

 was not so deep in the water as the blue ground-ice, and could 

 therefore drift nearer the coast, a great inconvenience for our 

 vessel, which drew so much water. We soon came to a place 

 where the ice was packed so close to land that an open channel 

 only Sj to 4^ metres deep remained close to the shore. We 

 were therefore compelled after some hours' sailing to lie-to at a 

 ground-ice to await more favourable circumstances. The wind 

 had now gone from west to north and north-west. Notwith- 

 standing this the temperature became milder and the weather 

 rainy, a sign that great open stretches of water lay to the north 

 and north-west of us. During the night before the 21st it 

 rained heavily, the wind being N.N.W. and the temperature + 

 2". An attempt was made on that day to find some place where 

 the belt of drift-ice that was pressed against the land could be 



