Tov. 9, 1876] 



NATURE 



w 



Ifexciting and rather anxious neck-and-neck race with a 



Iheavy floe, which setting in towards the beetling pre- 



Jcipitous chffs of Cape Frederick VII., forming the south 



point of the bay, threatened to prevent our progress. At 



I the entrance of Lincoln Bay, which otherwise is much 



exposed, some very heavy floe-bergs were aground on a 



mk, and they must to a great extent keep heavy ice from 



»rcing its way into the bay during a south-easterly wind, 



which direction the bay is perfectly open. The head 



the bay, which appeared from the distance to be well 



Egetated, was filled with pack ice consisting of numerous 



lall floe pieces less than a quarter of a mile in diameter, 



"intermixed with "rubble," or "boulder" ice, now all 



cemented so firmly together with this season's frost that 



we had great difficulty in clearing away a dock for the 



ship. 



On the 30th a depot of provisions of 1,000 rations, for 

 the use of travelling parties, was landed on the north 

 shore of the bay. Soon after high water, the ice having 

 opened out considerably, we proceeded to the northward ; 

 but, in doing so, some large floe pieces of unusually heavy 

 ice obliged me, much to my regret, to stand out some 

 three miles from the lard, thereby risking the ship being 

 beset in the pack which I was most anxious and careful to 

 avoid happening. On all occasions of viewing the ice in 

 'lobeson Channel, since it was first seen from Cape 

 Morton, I had invariably noticed lanes of water stretching 

 south-east and north-west across the channel from about 

 Cape Lupton on the Greenland shore, to Cape Frederick 

 VII. on the west side, due probably to this being the 

 narrowest part or neck of the channel, and the ice jamming 

 across the narrowing space north and south of it, accord- 

 tig to the direction of pressure. Consequently, when at 

 3 r.M. the ice prevented any farther advance, observing 

 many pools of water near us, and having two hours of the 

 north-running tide favoured by a light air still due, instead 

 of returning to the safety of Lincoln Bay, I waited at the 

 edge of the pack, in the hope of its opening. But in this 

 I was disappointed, for at 4 P.M., having just sufficient 

 warning to enable me to pick cut the safest-looking place 

 near us, that is, to get as far away as possible from the 

 heavy ice, it completely encircled the ship, and she was 

 hopelessly beset in a very heavy pack, consisting of old 

 floes of 80 feet in thickness, and from one to four miles 

 in diameter, the intervals between them filled with broken- 

 up ice of all sizes, from the blue-ice rounded hummocks 

 which were sufficiently high above the water-line to lift 

 the quarter boats bodily as they passed underneath, whilst 

 ;;rirding their way along the ship's side, down to the 

 r mailer pieces which the previous nipping together of the 

 heavy floes had rounded and polished like the boulders 

 and pebbles in a rapid river. Intermixed with the pack, 

 fortunately for us, was a vast collection of soft pats of 

 sludge-ice formed during the last snowfall : this, if 

 squeezed together before it is properly hardened into ice, 

 orms into plate-like masses with raised edges, each piece, 

 whenever moved, assisting to round its neighbour. 



Since meeting the ice off Cape Sabine I had noticed a 

 gradual tut considerable change taking place in the 

 appearance and formation of the floes. The heaviest 

 that we first encountered were not more than eight or ten 

 feet in thickness. Off Cape Frazer were a Jew more 

 ancient pieces, estimated at the time as being twenty feet 

 thick, but we now know that that was far short of the 

 correct measure. But up to the present time, when the 

 main pack consisted of heavy ice, I had failed to realize 

 that, instead of approaching a region favoured with open 

 water and a warm climate, we were gradually nearing a 

 sea where the ice was of a totally different formation to 

 what we had ever before experienced, and that few Arctic 

 navigators had me', and only one battled with success- 

 fully ; that in reality we must be approaching the same 

 sea which gives birth to the ice met with on the coast of 

 America by Collinson and McClure, and which the latter 



in 1 85 1, succeeded in navigating through in a sailing 

 vessel for upwards of 100 miles, during his memorable 

 and perilous passage along the north-west coast of Banks 

 Land, from Prince Alfred Cape to the Bay of Mercy, but 

 there sealed up his ship for ever ; which Sir Edward 

 Parry iiiet with in the same channel in 1820, but with the 

 more difficult task before him of navigating against stream 

 and prevailing wind, was forced to own conquered even 

 him and his experienced companions ; which, passing on- 

 wards to the eastward down McClintock Channel, beset, 

 and never afterwards released, the ErcbusTiwA Terror under 

 Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier ; and which, inter- 

 mixed with light Spitzbergen ice, is constantly streaming 

 to the southward along the eastern shore of Greenland, 

 and there destroyed the Hansa cf the German Arctic 

 Expedition. 



As our only hope of pushing north against the general 

 set of the current, to say nothing of the extreme hazard 

 of remaining in such a pack, consisted in regaining the 

 shore, both boilers were lighted and full steam kept 

 ready, in order to take immediate advantage of any 

 opportunity that might occur. During the night, at the 

 top of high water, the pack, which previously had been 

 drifting in a compact body to the southward, eased a 

 little near the edge of the large and deep floating floes, 

 in consequence of a difference in the force of the surface 

 and under-current ; but before we were able to clrar away 

 a space of water at the stern sufficiently large to enable 

 the rudder to be shipped, the ice closed, and obliged us to 

 dismantle again. At the full height of the ebb current 

 the pack again tried its best to open, but with th? same 

 result. 



Fully expecting a change at low water, with much 

 labour a working space was cleared under the stern, but 

 owing to the spare rudder being very badly balanced we 

 nearly lost our opportunity. At last, with the same rr. omen- 

 tary slacking of the ice pressure as occurred at the top of 

 high water, with a greater pressure of steam than had 

 been exerted even during the official steam trial, the ship 

 commenced to move ; when, by advancing and retreating, 

 a water space was gradually formed in which the ship 

 could gain momentum, and at last we pushed our way 

 bodily into ice not quite so close, and succeeded most 

 providentially in reaching the shore in Lincoln Bay. Had 

 we been delayed another five minutes the ship would 

 have been caught in the pack during the heavy gale 

 which set in from the south-west the same evening, and 

 continued for two days ; and which, in fact, by forcing 

 the pack to the north-east, out of the Robeson Channel, 

 enabled the ship to pass Cape Union without any trouble. 



During the late struggle, as well as on many previous 

 occasions, it was noticeable how futile the efforts of the 

 crew were to clear away the ice on the bow or quarter 

 which impeded the movement of the ship, compared to 

 the enormous power exerted by the ship when able to 

 ram her way between the pieces even at ordinary speed. 

 Thus steamers are enabled to penetrate through a broken- 

 up pack which the old voyagers, with their sailing vessels, 

 necessarily deemed impassable. At the same time there 

 is a limit to the risks which are advisable to be run ; no 

 ship has yet been built which could withstand a real 

 nip between two pieces of heavy ice. 



On the afternoon of August 31, shortly after the ship 

 was secured in her former position to the firm ice in Lincoln 

 Bay, the wind gradually freshened from the south-west, 

 blowing slightly off the land, accompanied with a snow- 

 storm and a threatening appearance of the weather. So 

 far as we could dstinguish through the snow, the main 

 pack was driven by the gale to the northward up the 

 channel, but knowing that it would take some hours to 

 produce a navigable passage past Cape Union, I waited 

 until the morning of September i, when with steam 

 at hand ready if requisite, we passed up the straits, 

 running before a strong gale 9^ knots an hour, between 



