1876 PRINCESS MARIE BAY. 171 



to within four miles of Cape Victoria. There three 

 large Polar floes, which had become locked in by a 

 chain of icebergs aground near the cape, stopped us. 

 The open water was now in sight from the mast-head, 

 but the temperature had fallen to 23. 



During the night and the following day the pack 

 drifted to the eastward and westward with the tides, 

 moving with great regularity. 



It was most fortunate for us that we had reached 

 the large floes, as with each movement water-pools 

 formed at their edges and permitted us to move the ships 

 ahead a few yards or more at a time, always on the 

 watch not to be nipped when passing round a point, 

 and not to become frozen-in by the quickly- 

 forming young ice when secured in an indentation in 

 the floes. By taking every advantage that offered, we 

 reached to within a mile of the icebergs locking in 

 the heavy floes on the evening of the 8th. The tem- 

 perature was 20 ; but the frost rather assisted us than 

 otherwise by cementing all the debris ice together ; 

 consequently, whenever a movement occurred, instead 

 of the debris dispersing itself in the free water-space 

 with the release of pressure, it was held in bondage, 

 and left us a clear water-channel. 



The following is extracted from my journal : 



' When I consider the large quantity of ice we find 

 in the opening between Bache Island and Grinnell- 

 Land, and the slow-running tidal currents, I cannot 

 think it to be anything but a bay. 



' Copes Bay is a very deep fiord extending to the 

 north-west. Six or seven miles farther west is a broad 

 opening having three bays running north-west, west, 



