Nov. 9, 1876] 



NATURn 



25 



Island, when the fog, stealing in from the sea, gradually 

 obtained the mastery, and completely enveloped us. 

 The numerous picturesque rocky islands and reefs in this 

 sheltered labyrinthine passage are so incorrectly repre- 

 sented in the public charts that a pilot is at present a 

 necessity. The one who accompanied us, an Esquimaux, 

 informed me that many of the likely-looking channels are 

 bridged across with sunken reefs, and from the many 

 rocks we saw lying just awash directly in our passage, I 

 have reason to believe his statement. 



The large discharging Upernivik Glacier having only 

 one outlet leading direct to the sea, its numerous icebergs 

 of all sizes are collected in great numbers by the eddy 

 tides and currents among the islets situated to the south- 

 ward, and tend to keep the channels completely closed 

 until late in the season ; but when once open in July by 

 some of the bergs grounding on rocks, and others, by 

 their height above the flotation line, affording certain evi- 

 dence of deep water, they assist rather than impede navi- 

 gation during calm weather. On the morning of the 

 23rd, after an anxious night, passed with a dense fog and 

 a strong tidal current in a narrow channel, in which we 

 could obtain no bottom wuh 100 fathoms of line at a 

 cable's length of the shore, and with the Discovery in 

 tow, during a momentary clearance of the atmosphere, 

 two Esquimaux in their kyacks were observed close to us. 

 After consulting with them through Christian Petersen, 

 Danish and Esquimaux interpreter, they volunteered to 

 conduct us to an anchorage. On following them to the 

 position they denoted, and obtaining no bottom with the 

 hand-lead line at the main chains, I felt the bow of the 

 ship glide sloA-ly up on the ground. Through the fog we 

 could then see that the land was within fifty yards of us. 

 The Esquimaux had evidently not considered that our 

 ships required a greater depth of water to float in than 

 their own frail canoes. As it was nearly low water, and 

 the tide still falling, I allowed the ship to remain quiet 

 where she was, the Discovery still hanging to us by her 

 towing hawser, and took advantage of the enforced delay 

 by landing the ships' companies to wash their clothes. 



The fog lifted slightly as the day advanced, and as the tide 

 rose the ship floated without having incurred any strain or 

 damage whatever. I then proceeded to sea, discharging 

 the pilot, who was not to blame for our mishap, off the 

 north shore of Kangitok, the outlying island of the 

 group, after passing which the channel presents no diffi- 

 culties. 



Thinking that probably a distorted account of our 

 getting on shore might reach Europe, at the last moment 

 I wrote a hasty pencil letter to Capt. Evans, hydrographer, 

 merely to point out how very unimportant the slight 

 detention had been. 



By 4 P.M. we had passed the Brown Islands with a sea 

 perfectly clear of ice before and around us. Having 

 given much study and consideration to the question, and 

 a high and very steady barometer following a south-east 

 wind, denoting that the calm settled weather we had 

 lately enjoyed was likely to continue, I decided to force 

 my way through the middle ice of Baffin's Bay instead 

 of proceeding by the ordinary route round Melville Bay. 

 Accordingly both ships proceeded at full speed to the 

 westward, racing in company for Cape York, with only 

 about a dozen icebergs in sight ahead, floating quietly on 

 a calmly mirrored sea to dispute our passage. As we 

 passed out from the land the fog gradually dissolved and 

 revealed a magnificent and unique panorama of the ice- 

 capped mountains of Greenland which give birth to the 

 Upernivik Glacier, fronted by innumerable icebergs, 

 and, at a long distance in advance, by the group of scat- 

 tered black islets among which we had passed the pre- 

 vious night, and of which Kangitok is the northernmost. 



At 1.30 A.M. of the 24th we ran into the pack at a dis- 

 tance of seventy miles from Kangitok. It consisted of 

 open-sailing ice rom one to three feet, and occasionally 



four feet in thickness. The floes were at first not larger 

 than 250 yards in diameter, and very rotten, dividing 

 readily, and opening a channel when accidentally struck 

 by the ship. The reflection in the sky near the horizon 

 denoted that while the ice was very open to the southward 

 of us, it was apparently closer packed to the northward. 

 About 6 A.M., when we had run thirty miles through the 

 ice, it gradually became closer, and the floes larger, esti- 

 mated as measuring one mile in diameter, and necessi- 

 tated a discriminating choice to be made of the best 

 channels. For fourteen hours, during which time we ran 

 sixty miles, the ice continued in much the same state, 

 never close enough to suggest the probability of a barrier 

 occurring, and yet keeping the look-out in the " Crow's 

 Nest " fully employed. After 8 P.M. the channels of water 

 became decidedly broader and more numerous, so I gradu- 

 ally altered course to the northward, steering directly for 

 Cape York, the ice becoming more and more open as we 

 advanced. 



At 9.30 A.M. of July 25 we sighted the high land north 

 of Cape York, and at 1 1 o'clock, much to the astonish- 

 ment of the ice quartermasters, who continually declared, 

 " It will ne'er be credited in Peterhead," we were fairly in 

 the " north water," and able again to think about econo- 

 mising coal, having come through the middle ice in thirty- 

 four hours without a check ; but it is my duty to add, 

 with not a few scratches along the water-line. 



In consequence of our having made a successful voyage 

 through the middle it should not be too hastily concluded 

 that a similar passage can always be commanded. The 

 middle pack is justly dreaded by the most experienced 

 ice navigators. Large icebergs and surface-ice, floating in 

 water at various depths, when affected either by wind or 

 an ocean current, move at different rates ; hence, when in 

 motion, as one passes the other, the lighter surface-ice, 

 incapable of controlling its course, is readily torn in pieces 

 by the heavy massive iceberg ; therefore, a ship once 

 entrapped in pack ice among icebergs, unless she has water 

 space to allow her to move out of the way, is constantly in 

 danger of being carried forcibly a^^ainst a berg. On such 

 occasions man is powerless, for he can take no possible 

 means to save his vessel. Before steam- vessels were used 

 for ice navigation the masters of sailing ships, being 

 unable to take full advantage of a favourable calm, very 

 wisely seldom ventured to force their way through the 

 middle ice, and chose, in preference, the chance of delay 

 in making the safer passage through Melville Bay, where, 

 by securing their vessel in dock in the fixed land ice, they 

 ran less danger of being nipped whilst forcibly detained 

 by the channels through the ice remaining closed. 



At the latter end of July with an open season, indicated 

 by the main pack not being met with nearer than fifty 

 miles from the land, in about latitude 73° 20' and a con- 

 tinuous calm, to allow the northerly running current on 

 the Greenland shore and the southerly running one on 

 the western side of Baffin's Bay to open up the ice, I 

 believe a passage can always be made by a steam-vessel ; 

 but, unless this favourable combination of circumstances 

 is met with, so far as the scanty knowledge we at present 

 possess enables us to judge, the passage must still be said 

 to be doubtful. 



Soon after sighting land and getting clear of the 

 drift ice, the Discovery parted company to communicate 

 with the natives at Cape York, while the Alert proceeded 

 towards the Carey Islands. A vast collection of icebergs, 

 many of them aground, were thickly crowded together off 

 the Cape, and in lines parallel with the coast trending 

 towards Conical Rock and Cape AthoU. In the offing 

 they were less numerous, which I attribute to the south- 

 erly current which we experienced the following day on 

 our passage to the Carey Islands, catching up and carrying 

 with it to the southward those that drift out from the main 

 body to the westward beyond the influence of the north- 

 running current on the Greenland coast. 



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