SUMMER CRUISE 47 
On our return to the boat, we found that a very large floe 
had come between us and the ship, and in doing so a corner of 
it had caught on a small island and had gone completely over 
it, showing the momentum of these great cakes, and the hope- 
lessness of the attempt to build a ship sufficiently strong to 
withstand the pressure exerted by such ice moving on the tide 
when suddenly arrested by land or by motionless ice. A narrow 
lane of water still showed between the floe and the land, and by 
hard rowing we got safely through before it closed, when the 
ship butted the way through other ice and finally took us on 
board. 
Ross bay was now crossed in order that a record might 
be left at Cape Herschel on the mainland of the great island of 
Ellesmere, Cape Sabine being on an island separated from the 
mainland by a narrow strait. When about a mile from Cape 
Herschel, going full speed, and while an attempt was made to 
pass between two small icebergs, the ship struck heavily on a 
sharp point of rock. Luckily she did not hang, but bounced 
over it, striking again amidships and finally on the stern post. 
A sounding taken Within two hundred yards of the rock gave 
a depth of seventy fathoms, from which it was concluded that 
the rock was a sharp submerged peak, with the icebergs 
grounded on two sides of it. The pumps were immediately 
sounded, but the ship was found to be making very little water, 
and the full extent of the damage was not known until the 
vessel was placed in dry-dock at Halifax, when it was found 
that the blow in the bow had loosened the iron stemplate, which 
was subsequently lost in butting the heavy ice, and the lower 
stem was carried away to the ends of the planking. Luckily 
the Neptune is eight feet thick in the bow, and could stand a 
great deal of damage there without serious danger to her float- 
ing qualities. Seventy-five feet of the keel was removed by 
the second blow and the stern-post twisted and broken by the 
third. 
