300 EXPEDITIONS OF PARRY AND ROSS— 1827-3S. 



mass began to move to the eastward with frightful rapidity, carrying along 

 with it our helpless ship, amidst a collision and a noise, from the breaking 

 of the ice against the rocks, which was truly awful." Luckily the drift of 

 the ice carried the " Victory " into an open channel, where she was made 

 fast to a grounded iceberg, and thus secured for the time. The change of 

 tide drove the explorers out of their shelter, and they were carried within 

 three yards of some rocks which were just under water, at the narrowest 

 part of the point. Believing that they might succeed in rounding this place, 

 and thus getting into what seemed to be still water, they endeavoured with 

 much labour to warp the ship into a small creek immediately beyond the 

 rocks. Thisproved to be a whirlpool; and, says Ross, "having been turned 

 round by it many times, for more than an hour, we were obliged to leave it, 

 and trust ourselves once more to the confusion without." 



On the 30th September, after forcing his way southward among a group 

 of islets off the mainland, one of which he named Andrew Ross Island 

 (lat. about 70° 13' north), the captain discovered a spacious bay to the 

 north-east, protected on the south-west by an island. In this place of 

 security (lat. about 70°, long. G. 2° 40'), he resolved to take up his position ; 

 for he now considered that all hope of making further progress was at an 

 end for the season. On the 1st October the harbour was surveyed, and 

 Ross was pleased to find, that should he be frozen up in this spot, he should 

 find it safe. And here, sure enough, he was frozen up ; so satisfactorily 

 frozen up, that he was forced to spend four terrible winters amid the ice of 

 this region, without being able to extricate himself Lucky it was for the 

 adventurers in the " Victory," that they had amply provisioned themselves 

 from the "Fury's" stores; for had they not thus been providentially 

 supplied with the means of sustaining life, they must have perished to a man 

 '^ "' before the close of the second winter. 



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