THE JOURNAL OF M. J, DUMONT-D’URVILLE. 453. 
the Zélée. Notwithstanding the violence of the wind, we were obliged 
to carry as much sail as possible to prevent being driven on to the 
pack, where we should have been quickly and inevitably lost. Being 
forced, however, to clew up the mainsail in a squall, it was almost im- 
mediately torn to ribbons. Soon we had to take in the foresail; but we 
managed with great difficulty to set the close-reefed main topsail ; the 
masts bent even under this reduced sail. Every moment we feared 
the main-mast would go or our topsails would be carried away and torn 
to pieces by the wind. The Astrolabe, floundering in the midst of waves 
which came over her on all sides, presented a terrifying spectacle ; she 
heeled over to such an extent that her leeward battery was almost 
entirely covered by the sea. If at that moment and at the speed at 
which we were going, she had run against any obstacle, she would have 
been engulfed immediately. The cold was intense, and the fore part of 
the ship was hidden under a thick coating of rime. The snow, which 
fell thickly, caught on every rope and froze there, thus increasing its 
stiffness. The efforts of all the crew were necessary to execute the 
slightest order, and I was afraid that their strength would soon be 
exhausted. 
Everyone, officers and men, did their duty admirably ; notwithstanding 
all our efforts, however, I soon saw that far from gaining eastwards 
we were drifting rapidly to the west. Twice already we had tacked close 
to the pack, and each time I had noticed that notwithstanding our tacking 
we had been carried a long way to the westward. To crown our mis- 
fortunes, the compass had become quite inaccurate, just when precise 
indications were so necessary to us. As a matter of fact, while we had 
been running south, hardly altering our course, we had scarcely noticed 
the considerable deviation which the magnetic needle had undergone in 
approaching the magnetic pole. But on this day, the most terrible of 
all that we passed in the glacial regions, we had to sail in very different 
and often totally opposite directions; from that time all our compasses 
were untrue; we were so near the magnetic pole, that the horizontal 
force which directed our needles became too weak in comparison with 
outside influences; the indications of the compass immediately became 
faulty and irregular. M. Dumoulin, who spent much time in studying 
the anomalies of the magnetic needle, had, during the storm, collected 
together all the compasses we had on board into the quietest part of the 
vessel. Nevertheless, it was not for some days, after having made 
observations of comparative declination (variation) with the ship heading 
in all directions, that we knew exactly the route we had followed in the 
ice, and all the dangers that we had run. 
On the 24th the floating icebergs (glaces) we had noticed before 
served as our sole guides; they sufficed to prove that, notwithstanding 
our tacking, the wind was carrying us rapidly to the westward, and our 
only hope of safety lay in a speedy diminution in the strength of the 
