1875 MELVILLE BAY. 37 



guns hoping to obtain game ; both king and common 

 eider ducks were found and females of both species 

 were shot off their nests. The island is composed of 

 red gneiss; veins of quartz with large garnets in it 

 traverse the rock in a north and south direction. 



As the tide rose our stragglers were recalled, and 

 just before noon the ship floated, without having in- 

 curred any strain or damage. The fog having cleared 

 considerably, we at once proceeded to sea, discharging 

 our pilot, greatly to his delight and relief. At 4 p.m. 

 we were abreast of the Brown Islands, with a sea 

 perfectly clear of drift-ice. A high and steady baro- 

 meter denoting that the calm weather which we had 

 lately experienced would probably continue, and find- 

 ing the ice at a great distance from the Greenland 

 shore, I decided to attempt a passage through the 

 ' Middle Ice ' rather than to proceed by the ordinary 

 route round Melville Bay. Accordingly the two ships 

 proceeded at full speed to the westward, racing in com- 

 pany for Cape York, with only about a dozen icebergs 

 in sight. After midnight, having run sixty miles from 

 the Brown Islands on a west by north course true, 

 we sighted the pack, the temperature of the water 

 falling from 36° to 33°, and at 1.30 a.m. we steamed 

 into it. The pack consisted of open sailing ice from 

 one to three and occasionally four feet in thickness ; 

 the floes first met with were about two hundred and 

 fifty yards in diameter and very rotten. In order to 

 shorten the passage between the floes, it became 

 necessary to force many of the smaller pieces aside, 

 but beyond the momentary check of speed and the 

 scratching of the ice along the ship's side, little trouble 



