78 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. August 



On the morning of the 8th the weather was calm 

 and the ice appeared inclined to open, but we made 

 little advance until the ebb-tide commenced about 

 4 a.m. After a large expenditure of manual labour, 

 gunpowder, and coal, we succeeded in pushing both 

 ships into more open ice and, by skirting the large 

 Hoes as much as possible, we found ourselves at 7 a.m. 

 in a large pool of water with only one neck of ice 

 between us and the shore water off Cape Victoria. 

 On arriving near the barrier I found, to my dismay, 

 that the floes were closing in as fast as we broke away 

 a passage. After half an hour's rather anxious work, 

 the two ships frequently charging together, and the 

 ' Alert's ' rudder-head being sprung when necessarily 

 going astern full speed, I observed that the points of 

 a turning floe would probably offer a chance of escape 

 in another direction. Making a hasty flank movement 

 we arrived just in time to take advantage of the barrier 

 when at its weakest, and with one charge together, we 

 broke our way through and escaped, everyone heartily 

 glad to be in free water once more with no more seri- 

 ous damage than sprung rudders. Within half an hour 

 there was not a single pool of water in the four miles' 

 breadth of ice through which we had lately struggled. 



The pack, fortunately for us, consisted generally of 

 ice from four to six feet in thickness ; yet there were 

 many heavier floes which must have been from twelve 

 to twenty feet thick ; the surface of these consisted of 

 a series of mottled ice-knolls of a blue colour, the 

 melted down remains of former hummocks, denoting 

 great age. 



Previous to our departure from England, although 



