100 THE SEA. 



Passing over some intermediate details not generally interesting, we find that Captain 

 Nares decided to force his way through the " middle ice " of Baffin's Bay, instead of pro- 

 ceeding by the ordinary route round Melville Bay. On July 24th they ran into the pack, 

 and had the satisfaction, thirty-four hours afterwards, of having completed the passage of 

 the middle ice, an unparalleled feat. "It will ne'er be credited in Peterhead," said the 

 astonished ice-quartermasters. At Cape York, icebergs, many of them grounded, were noted 

 thickly crowded together. At the south-east point of Carey Island a reserve depot of pro- 

 visions, &c., was formed, and the record we have already mentioned as having been recovered 

 by Captain Young was deposited in a cairn. Later, another note was left at Littleton Island. 

 The first ice, in large quantities, was sighted off Cape Sabine on the 30th of July. The 

 pack in the offing consisted of floes from five to six feet thick, with occasionally older and 

 heavier floes, ten to twelve feet in thickness, but always much decayed and honeycombed. 

 The ships were detained at Payer Harbour for three days, watching for an opening in 

 the ice, getting under weigh whenever there appeared the slightest chance of proceeding 

 onwards, but on each occasion being forced to return. On the 4th of August they were 

 enabled to proceed twenty miles up Hayes Sound. A little later, and both ships were for 

 the time hopelessly entangled, and the rudders and screws had to be unshipped. At this 

 period they barely escaped a serious collision with a large iceberg. The repetition of many 

 similar dangers, through which, however, the ships passed safely, would be wearisome to 

 the reader. On August 24th, five miles off Cape Lieber, the pack obliged the vessels to 

 enter Lady Franklin's Sound, on the northern shore of which an indentation of the land 

 gave promise of protection. On a nearer approach they discovered a well-protected harbour 

 inside an island immediately west of Cape Bellot, against which the pack-ice of the channel 

 rested. The next morning they were rejoiced to see a herd of nine musk-oxen feeding close 

 by, all of which were killed. The vegetation was considerably richer than at any part of 

 the coast visited north of Port Foulke, which Captain Nares considers " the Elysium of the 

 Arctic regions." The harbour was found to be perfectly suitable for winter quarters, and it 

 was therefore decided to leave the Discovery there, while the Alert should push on alone. 

 The Discovery was embedded in the ice for ten and a half months. Captain Stephenson, of 

 that vessel, stated, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, that their first 

 care was to place on shore six months' provisions and fuel, to guard against any possible 

 accident to the ship. They were particularly fortunate in killing musk-oxen and smaller 

 game. Before the darkness set in they had shot thirty-two of the former, and had at one 

 time as much as 3,053 Ibs. of frozen meat hanging up. The captain could not say much 

 for its flavour: "it was so very musk." Snow was piled up outside the ship fifteen to 

 twenty feet thick. This and the layer on deck mingled with ashes, which formed a kind 

 of macadamised walk kept the warmth in the vessel, and the temperature of the lower 

 deck ranged from 48 to 56. On October 10th they lost sight of the sun, and did not 

 see it again for 135 days. 



The Alert on her northward passage had many a severe tussle with the ice, but passed 

 through all dangers successfully. On August 31st Captain Nares had the great satisfaction 

 of having carried his vessel into latitude 82 24' N., a higher point than ever attained 

 before. The ensign was hoisted at the peak, and there was universal rejoicing on 



