44 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



brought a milder temperature. In the first part of 

 the winter, before the ice became too thick, the E. 

 and S.E. winds broke it up and formed large holes 

 or clefts north and east of the vessel. In a heavy 

 northerly storm at the beginning of November, the 

 newly-frozen ice one foot thick, pressing against the 

 older and stronger, which lay aground on the outer 

 sandbank directly astern of us, broke and piled up 

 into torosser of some twenty feet high. On the same 

 occasion the ice shot up on to the flat beach and 

 accumulated in several places so as to form ice-walls 

 of a similar height. On the 1st of January, about 

 seven miles N.N.E. of the vessel, there was a channel 

 running east and west, which was so broad that from 

 its southern edge the northern was not discernible. 

 During the latter part of the winter, when the cold 

 became more intense, we could see no open water 

 from our mast-head, but a continuous ice-field, whose 

 even surface was only broken here and there by some 

 old ice-blocks which had been frozen in by the new 

 ice. Still, on several occasions we saw the so-called 

 "water-sky," from which we inferred that open holes 

 were to be found, although at a great distance. When 

 in the month of May we opened up a channel on the 

 one side of the vessel, the ice nearest us measured 

 seven feet thick. 



A table is given on the opposite page showing the 

 thickness of the ice, which was measured on the 1st 

 and 15th of every month ; while another indicates the 



