216 THE SEA. 



private subscriptions and some Government aid, fitted her out most completely. She- 

 was soon gratified by obtaining the willing and gratuitous services of several distinguished 

 officers. Captain (now Sir) F. L. M'Clintock, who had braved the dangers of the Arctic 

 with (James) Ross, Austin, and Kellett; Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, an officer of much 

 experience; Captain Allen Young, of the merchant marine, who not merely threw hi& 

 services into the cause, but subscribed 500 in furtherance of it ; and Dr. David Walker, 

 an accomplished surgeon and scientific man were all volunteers whose services were secured. 

 " Many worthy old shipmates," says M'Clintock, " my companions in the previous Arctic 

 voyages, most readily volunteered their services, and were as gratefully accepted, for it wa& 

 my anxious wish to gather around me well-tried men, who were aware of the duties expected 

 of them and accustomed to naval discipline. Hence, out of the twenty-five souls composing 

 our small company, seventeen had previously served in the Arctic search/' Just before 

 starting, Carl Petersen, now so well known to Arctic readers on account of his subsequent 

 connection with Dr. Kane's expedition, joined the vessel as interpreter. The vessel was 

 amply provisioned for twenty-eight months, and the supplies included preserved vegetables, 

 lemon-juice, and pickles, for daily consumption. The Admiralty caused 6,682 Ibs. of pem- 

 mican * to be prepared for the expedition, and the Board of Ordnance furnished the arms, 

 powder and shot, rockets, and powder for ice blasting. M'Clintock, being anxious to retain 

 for his vessel the privileges she formerly enjoyed as a yacht, was enrolled as a member of 

 several of the leading clubs. 



The Fox left England on the last day of June, 1857, and after visiting some of the 

 Greenland settlements, turned seawards. Seventy miles to the west of Upernavik the edge 

 of the "middle ice" was reached, and the vessel caught in its margin of loose ice. They 

 soon steamed out of what might have been to a sailing vessel a serious predicament, and 

 closely examined the field for forty miles without finding an opening. M'Clintock, bein^ 

 satisfied that he could not force a passage through it across Baffin's Bay, steered to the 

 northward, and on August 12th was in Melville Bay, where the vessel was made fast to- 

 an iceberg which was grounded in fifty-eight fathoms (348 feet) of water. Here they 

 were again beset by the ice. Alas ! this was but the commencement of their troubles. 

 For 242 days or, in other words, for eight months after this the little Fox was helplessly 

 and, as it often appeared, hopelessly, drifting with the ice packed and piled around her, 

 with but a feeble chance of escape, and with a very strong probability of being crushed to- 

 nothing without a moment's warning. Some extracts from M'Clintock's journal will be 

 found interesting at this juncture. 



"20th. No favourable ice-drift; this detention has become most painful. The Enter- 

 prise reached the open water upon this day in 1848, within fifty miles of our present 

 position. Unfortunately, our prospects are not so cheering. There is no relative motion 

 in the floes of ice, except a gradual closing together, the small spaces and streaks of water- 

 being still further diminished. The temperature has fallen, and is usually below the 



* Although there is some variation in the mode of preparing this comestible, it is essentially always the same : 

 lean meat, dried and cut into shreds, which is then pounded up and mixed with melted beef fat, and pressed into 

 cases. Among the Indians, who have not this latter resource of civilisation, gut and skins are employed, and their 

 pemmican is not, therefore, unlike a rather substantial and solid sausage. 



