278 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



the sight- vane was kept constantly directed towards tlic sun when that object 

 was visible, and set according to its azimuth at the corresponding apparent 

 time. This method was now resorted to, not so much on account of any in- 

 creased sluggishness in the traversing of the compasses, though this indeed 

 Avas at times considerable, as from the extreme practical inconvenience of ap- 

 plying to compass-courses a large and ever-varying correction for the eflect 

 of local attraction on (lifferent directions of the ship's head. We were not 

 at this time aware that the needles were, in this neighbourliood, subject to 

 be influenced by other local attractions than those produced by the iron in 

 the ships. »- 



We lay here in iifty-two fathoms, on a bottom of soft greenish mud. Some 

 Avater brought up from a de])th of fifty fathoms was at the temi)eraturc of 

 31 1°, that of the surface being 30];° by the same thermometer, and of the air 

 32°. We had now the first opportunity of closely examining the thickness 

 of the ice that opposed so complete a barrier to our progress to the westward, 

 and were not a little jjlcascd to find that it scarcely exceeded a foot in any 

 part, and was generally much thinner than this, besides being full of pools 

 of water that were rapidly dissolving it into holes. We now also remarked 

 that the tides were extremely small in this place, compared with those to 

 which we had lately been accustomed; and it was evident that to this cir- 

 cumstance might partly at least ])e attributed the late retention of the ice, 

 which must have been immediately broken up by a stream of any considerable 

 rapidity. The wind freshening up strong from the north-west, with a return 

 of thick weather, we escaped, by making fast to the ice, a very inclement and 

 disagreeable night. 

 Mon. 22. The weather cleared up sufficiently on the 22d to allow us to obtain ob- 

 servations, though the ice was found to be so much in motion that we could 

 only use the instruments by removing them several hundred yards from the 

 sea. The margin of the floe had a waving motion with the swell, which I 

 have before mentioned as peculiar to thin salt-water ice. We were here in 

 lat. 69° 33' 27", and in longitude, by chronometers, 81° 09' 13"; the dip 

 of the magnetic needle being 87° 37' 09"; and the variation 82° 21' 51" wes- 

 terly. The weather clearing still more in the afternoon we had the first 

 distinct, though still very distant, view of the land to the westward, in 

 which a number of breaks and openings appeared, leaving us in doubt of 

 the exact situation of the strait, which lay somewhere between a West and 

 N.W.b.W., bearing from our present station. The wind becoming light 



