she was not prepared beyond what is usual with our vessels of war, for 
the dangers that were to be encountered, having no planking, extra fas- 
tenings, or other preparations for these icy regions.’ In the same water 
in which the, Vincennes had been embayed, the Peacock prepared with 
a line of fourteen hundred fathoms, found bottom with five hundred fath- 
oms ; there was blue and slate colored mud ; a piece of stone was attached 
to the lead, which had a bruise upon it, as if it had struck upon hard rock; 
the remainder of the line had evidently lain upon the bottom. After 
sailing a short distance the soundings were three hundred and twenty 
fathoms, thus shallowing one hundred and eighty, and indicating an 
approach to a shore ; the surface temperature 32°, and that at the bot- 
tom 274° ; dip of the needle, 86° 16’. The feeling on board the ship 
was that of intense gratification, as it was now considered to be certain 
that a terra firma (not an island merely) had been discovered.* 
Jan. 24, Ata short distance soundings were found at eight hundred 
——— The Peacock was now approaching to great perils. At 8h. 
Om. A. M. in attempting to avoid some ice under the bow, the stern 
came “so forcibly in contact with another mass of ice, that it seemed 
from the shock as if it were entirely stove in,” and the rudder with its 
appendages was so much injured as to make a considerable angle with 
the keel, and thus to become entirely useless. 
~The ship was now rapidly entering the ice and could not be steered 
by her sails; fresh shocks were received almost every moment, and 
every blow threatened instant destruction. An ineffectual attempt was 
made to repair the rudder by rigging a stage over the stern, ard it was 
eventually unshipped and hoisted aboard. ‘‘ In the meantime, the posi- 
of the vessel was every instant growing worse and worse, sur- 
rounded as she was by masses of floe-ice, and driving farther and far- 
ther into it towards an immense wall-sided iceberg. All attempts to 
get the vessel on the other tack failed, in consequence of her being so 
closely encompassed.”” They attempted, therefore, to bring her head 
round by hanging her to an iceberg by the ice anchors. Just at the 
moment when, the anchor having been attached, “the hawser was 
passed on board, the ship took a start so suddenly astern, that the rope 
was literally dragged out of the men’s hands before they could get a 
turn around the bits.” 
* A penguin forty-five inches long from the tip of the tail to the bill, thirty-seven 
inches across the flippers and thirty-three for the circumference of the body, ap- 
proached without any sign of fear, but was knocked down by the rennet and 
on recovering showed great resentment by fighting or noise. On being duly pre- 
a for the museum at Washington, thirty-two small pebbles were yey in his 
“Vol xix, No. 1.—April-June, 1845. 20 
