212 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
of our travels. Before I conclude my diary of 
this day’s events, I must mention one circum- 
stance more, which, although trivial in itself, 
deserves to be noticed, inasmuch as it tends to 
shew, that although this shore is at present blocked 
up with such heavy ice, yet that there are times 
when there is open water here. The circum- 
stance that I allude to is that a piece of fir-wood 
seven feet and a half long, andabout the thickness 
of a man’s arm, was found between seventy and 
eighty yards (inland) from the hummocks on the 
beach, and at least five and twenty or thirty feet 
above the level of the sea. Most part of it was 
buried in the ground, and it appeared, indeed, to 
have lain there for a considerable time, for the 
earth had penetrated between the fibres of it, so 
that when it was dug up it separated into distinct 
filaments, according to the grain of the wood. 
Thursday, 8th. — We packed up our tents at 
half-past two o’clock this morning, and took the 
cart up to the top of an eminence about half a 
mile from the beach, where we had determined 
yesterday to build a monument; but, owing to the 
weather being so bad in the forenoon, and the 
cutting of the hole in the ice having occupied so 
much of our time in the afternoon, we were obliged 
to defer it until this morning; it did not delay us 
long, however, for there were so many stones on 
the spot we had selected, that we finished it 
by four o’clock. It is of a circular form, and of 
the following dimensions, namely, twelve feet in 
diameter at the base, and about twelve feet high. 
In a small apartment which we made in the centre 
