SUMMER CRUISE 47 



On our return to the boat, we found that a very large floe 

 had come between us and the ship, and in doing so a corner of 

 it had caught on a small island and had gone completely over 

 it, showing the momentum of these great cakes, and the hope- 

 lessness of the attempt to build a ship sufficiently strong to 

 withstand the pressure exerted by such ice moving on the tide 

 when suddenly arrested by land or by motionless ice. A narrow 

 lane of water still showed between the floe and the land, and by 

 hard rowing we got safely through before it closed, when the 

 ship butted the way through other ice and finally took us on 

 board. 



Ross bay was now crossed in order that a record might 

 be left at Cape Herschel on the mainland of the great island of 

 Ellesmere, Cape Sabine being on an island separated from the 

 mainland by a narrow strait. When about a mile from Cape 

 Herschel, going full speed, and while an attempt was made to 

 pass between two small icebergs, the ship struck heavily on a 

 sharp point of rock. Luckily she did not hang, but bounced 

 over it, striking again amidships and finally on the stern post. 

 A sounding taken within two hundred yards of the rock, gave 

 a depth of seventy fathoms, from which it was concluded that 

 the rock was a sharp submerged peak, with the icebergs 

 grounded on two sides of it. The pumps were immediately 

 sounded, but the ship was found to be making very little water, 

 and the full extent of the damage was not known until the 

 vessel was placed in dry-dock at Halifax, when it was found 

 that the blow in the bow had loosened the iron stemplate, which 

 was subsequently lost in butting the heavy ice, and the lower 

 stem was carried away to the ends of the planking. Luckily 

 the Neptune is eight feet thick in the bow, and could stand a 

 great deal of damage there without serious danger to her float- 

 ing qualities. Seventy-five feet of the keel was removed by 

 the second blow and the stern-post twisted and broken by the 

 third. 



