182 THE SEA. 



one occasion it took the party two hours to make a distance of ] 50 yards ! They 

 had been deviating from their night travelling, and were otherwise feeling the effects 

 of it in that inflammation of the eyes which ends in snow-blindness. The night travelling 

 was therefore resumed. On July 3rd their way at first lay across a number of small 

 loose pieces of ice, most of which were from five to twenty yards apart, or just 

 .sufficiently separated to give them all the trouble of launching and hauling up the 

 boats without the advantage of making any progress by water. Sometimes the boats 

 were used as a kind of bridge, by which the men crossed from one mass to another. By 

 this means they at length reached a floe about a mile in length, on which the snow 

 lay to the depth of five inches or so, under which, again, there was about the 

 same depth of water. Parry says that snow-shoes would not have been of the least 

 .service, as the surface was so irregular that the men would have been thrown down at 

 every other step. Among the hummocks noted at this time were smooth, regular cones 

 of ice, "resembling in shape the aromatic pastiles sold by chemists ; this roundness and 

 regularity of form indicate age, all the more recent ones being sharp and angular." 



Day after day they laboured on, with little variation in the circumstances detailed 

 above. The men worked with great cheerfulness and goodwill, " being animated with 

 ^he hope of soon reaching the more continuous body which had been considered as com- 

 posing the c main ice ' to the northward of Spitzbergen," which Captain Lutwidge had 

 described as " one continued plain of smooth, unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon,"* 

 They certainly deserved to reach it, if it existed at all; but it is more than probable 

 that this apparently continuous level, mentioned by several navigators, had been seen from 

 .an elevation, the " crow's nest" on board ship, or some hill ashore, and that a nearer 

 inspection would have shown it to be full of hummocks and breaks. 



It is amusing to read of them breakfasting at five p.m., dining at midnight, and 

 .taking supper at six or seven o'clock in the morning! On July llth, having halted an 

 hour at midnight for dinner, they were again harassed by a heavy rainfall, but although 

 drenched to the skin they made better progress soon after, traversing twelve miles, and 

 making seven and a half in a northerly direction. They had now reached the latitude of 

 82 11' 51". Next day's exertions only enabled them to make three and a half miles of 

 direct northing, and the following day but two and a half. Much thin ice was encountered ; 

 it was often a nervous thing to see their whole means of subsistence lying on a decayed 

 sheet, with holes quite through it, and which would have broken up with the slightest 

 motion among the surrounding masses. One day the ice on one side of a boat, heavy with 

 provisions and stores, gave way, almost upsetting her; a number of the men jumped 

 upon the ice and restored the balance temporarily. A rain-storm of twenty-one hours' 

 duration is recorded on the 14th and loth, which was, as generally the case, succeeded 

 by a thick wet fog. On the 16th the narrative records "the unusual comfort of putting 

 on dry stockings, and the no less rare luxury of delightfully pleasant weather." It was 

 ; so warm in the sun that the tar exuded from the seams of the boats. Even the sea-water, 

 though loaded with ice, had a temperature of 34. At this time the ice-floes were larger, 



* " Phipps's Voyage towards the North Pole." 



