58 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. July 



posed by our latitude at noon to be near Leconte Island, 

 but on the atmosphere clearing we found that we were 

 inside of Brevoort Island and within two miles of 

 Cape Sabine, which had been placed on the latest 

 chart ten miles too far north. During our eleven 

 hours' run from Cape Isabella, half the time with an 

 ebb and half with a flood-tide, we were set by the 

 current ten miles to the southward. 



The ice through which we had passed consisted 

 principally of old heavy floes, ten to twelve feet in 

 thickness and a hundred yards to a quarter of a mile 

 in diameter. Intermixed with these were others of 

 one-season ice, so rotten and honeycombed as to show 

 that they had not recently been subjected to heavy 

 pressure. Scattered amongst the pack-ice were several 

 icebergs, nearly all of which were flat-topped ; very 

 few of them had altered their line of flotation since 

 they first separated from their parent glaciers. 



Finding no bottom at a depth of twenty fathoms 

 close to the shore, the ships were secured by hawsers 

 to ice-anchors buried in the level ice-foot or ice-ledge 

 lining the shore. The northerly wind kept the ships 

 from swinging broadside against the land, they were 

 thus ready to start at a moment's notice. The upper 

 surface of the ice-foot was twenty to forty feet broad, 

 dependent on the inclination of the land, and level 

 with the high-water rise of spring-tides. At low- water 

 the rocks at the base of its vertical sea-face were bare, 

 leaving a cliff about ten feet high, which when the 

 tide was out could only be ascended through one of 

 the slippery passages cut by the water running down 

 from the land. The harbour, which was named after 



