Mar. 1858. AN ICE-NIP. 95 



distant, this pressure sliook the ship and cracked 

 the intervening ice. 



I went out with a lantern to see the nip, — 

 it certainly was awe-inspiring ; no one in his 

 senses could avoid reflecting upon the inevitable 

 fate of a ship if exposed to such fearful pressure. 

 It is now spring tides. 



Idth. — All yesterday the lane remained open, 

 in the evening it closed with but slight pressure ; 

 yet as the opposing fields of ice continued to 

 move in opposite directions, all jagged points 

 were brushed off, and the delDris thus formed 

 between their edges presented a heaving surface 

 of ice-masses, — an ice river. On the separation 

 of the floes, mass after mass forced itself up to 

 the surface, until at length all the submerged 

 ice had risen, except such as had been forced 

 quite under their edges. One seldom meets 

 with a cleanly fractured floe-edge, they are 

 usually fringed with crushed-up ice or newly 

 formed sludge. 



23rd. — Seals and dovekies are now common ; 

 the latter have already made considerable ad- 

 vances towards their summer plumage. 



Yesterday there was a very heavy S.B. gale ; 

 it blew so furiously, and the snow-drift was 

 so dense, that we could neither hear nor nee 

 what was going on twenty yards off; at night 



