SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 239 



latter being distant from the ships two thousand and twenty feet, or just '^-^- 



Jun6 



one-third of a nautical mile. It ^vas proposed to make a cut through the 



ice with the saws, along the two lines thus marked out, and then a trans- 

 verse section here and there, the divergency of the sides being intended 

 to facilitate the removal of the pieces tluis detached, by first pulling them 

 out with strong purchases, and then floating them down the canal to the sea 

 without. Nothing could exceed the alacrity with which this laborious 

 work was undertaken, and continued daily from six in the morning till eight 

 at night, with the intermission only of meal-times : nor could any thing 

 be more lively and interesting than the scene which now presented itself to 

 an observer on the south-east point. The day was beautifully clear, the 

 sea open as far as the eye could stretch to the northward, and the " busy 

 hum" of our people's voices could at times be heard, mingling with the 

 cheerful though fantastic songs with which the Greenland sailors arc ac- 

 customed at once to beguile their labour, and to keep the necessary time 

 in the action of sawing the ice. The whole prospect, together Avith the 

 hopes and associations excited by it, was to persons cooped up as we had 

 been, exhilarating almost beyond conception. 



In the course of the first week we had completed the two side cuts, and Sun. 9. 

 also two shorter ones in the space between the ships ; making in all a length 

 of two thousand three hundred feet on each side of the intended canal, the 

 thickness of the ice being in general four feet, but in one or two places 

 (where the junction of the sea-ice with the bay -floe had occasioned some 

 squeezing) above ten feet and a half, scarcely allowing our longest saws to 

 work. Laborious as this part of the operation had been, wc soon found it 

 likely to prove the least troublesome of the whole ; for on endeavouring to 

 pull out the pieces in the manner at first intended, every effort failed, till at 

 length Avc were reduced to the necessity of cutting each block diagonally be- 

 fore it could be moved from its place. After a week's experience, we also 

 learned that much time had been lost in completing the whole of the lateral 

 cuts at once ; for these, partly from frost, and partly by the closing together of 

 the sides of the canal, all required sawing a second and in some places even 

 a third time. It was surprising also to see how powerful a resistance was 

 occasioned by the "sludge" produced in sawing, or as the sailors called it, 

 the " saw-dust," continuing in the cut and appearing to act like oil inter- 

 posed between two plates of glass, in keeping the masses united. In some 

 cases also, a saw was squeezed so tight by the pressure of the ice in the 



